Preface: This essay was co-written with ChatGPT.

Early spring, 800 BCE. Palatine Hill.

Before dawn, mist climbs slowly from the side of the Tiber River, sliding over the low grass and stopping as it nears the slope, as if checked by an invisible boundary. A wooden door opens with a short, restrained sound. The man steps outside onto ground long hardened by repeated footsteps. He hesitates at nothing. First he checks the boundary stone, then the animals. The stone is still there, unmoved; the sheep are there too, none missing. Wind moves across the hillside, carrying a damp chill.

The fields here are not wide. A few irregular plots follow the shape of the slope. The grain has not fully headed; its color is dark, as if it has not yet woken from winter. The man bends to inspect the soil, rubbing a pinch of earth between his fingers to judge its moisture. He needs no record and no plan. These motions have been repeated too many times to require thought. The land seems quiet today. That is enough.

Inside, the fire is coaxed back to life. The woman bends and blows; the embers glow briefly, then settle into a steady light. The stone mill begins to turn, its low, even sound like time stretched into rhythm. The children wake still heavy with sleep, but already know what they must do—herd the sheep, gather wood, and keep an eye on the opposite hills. No one explains why. Here, explanation itself is unnecessary.

The day unfolds slowly. Sunlight reaches the slope without truly warming the air. The fields appear calm, but this calm feels more like a pause than a promise. While working, a shield rests against a tree and a spear stands in the soil, placed so they can be reached in an instant. Across the hills, other figures move. Their shapes are unclear; only the rhythm of their motions can be seen. They are familiar, yet never fully trusted.

At midday, when shadows shorten, several households gather. Someone mends a fence; others exchange news in low voices: which path shows fresh footprints, whether the water source has changed, whether unfamiliar sounds were heard at night. Words are few, and no one tries to draw conclusions. Everyone understands that a single household cannot endure for long, yet standing too close brings its own danger. This distance has been learned through repetition.

Evening arrives abruptly. Smoke rises along the slope and is scattered by the wind. In a corner of the house, a simple offering is arranged—to ancestors, to the land, and to unnamed forces often mentioned but never described. This is not a request for miracles, only a confirmation: the family remains, the land remains, and today no invisible line has been crossed.

Night falls. One by one, lights appear across the Palatine Hill and gradually settle into stillness. Damp wind rises from the river valley, making people draw their clothing tighter. Lights appear on the opposite hills as well, echoing one another while remaining separate.

In the eighth century BCE, the Palatine Hill does not know it “belongs to the Seven Hills.” It is simply one of many hills in central Latium—not the highest, not the most defensible, but positioned where several paths happen to cross. Below lies the unavoidable damp lowland; beyond lie other equally wary and equally scattered hill settlements. Each hill is a world unto itself, guarding its land, its animals, and the memory of its ancestors.

And in the eighth century BCE, there is no city called Rome. Latium stretches between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian Sea, a landscape of hills, valleys, and plains that is neither enclosed nor conspicuous. The Tiber runs through it, providing water and passage without dominating everything. People live on separate high grounds that can see one another yet remain independent. One of these is the Palatine. Archaeology shows that in the ninth to eighth centuries BCE, Iron Age pastoral-agricultural settlements already existed here: oval huts, ash pits, post holes. Families sustained themselves through herding and simple cultivation. The hilltops allow observation of the valley and surrounding movement, close enough to water yet safe from floods and sudden attack. There is no shared authority between the hills, only repeated contact, avoidance, and friction.

Between these hills lies a low, marshy ground where rainwater lingers and the air stays damp, unsuitable for dwelling or defense. This valley, later known as the Roman Forum, is at first merely a place where animals pass, goods are exchanged, and people encounter one another by chance. As the population grows, conflicts that could once be avoided by distance begin to replay here again and again. To make this land—claimed by no single hill—usable repeatedly, drainage channels are cut, eventually developing into the large system known as the Cloaca Maxima. This work, carried out in the late seventh to sixth centuries BCE, is significant not only technically but socially: for the first time, people invest long-term, irreversible effort into a space that belongs to none of them individually. The lowland becomes a sustainable shared space where ritual, exchange, and witnessing occur repeatedly. A “center” is created in practical terms, not proclaimed.

By the sixth century BCE, movement, cooperation, and dependence among the hills have already formed the reality of urban life, though without clear boundaries. External threats no longer target a single hill but the entire settlement area. A defensive system traditionally associated with Servius Tullius begins to take shape: what later becomes known as the Servian Wall. The wall does not create the city. It follows existing patterns of life, enclosing the seven hills within a single defensive line. Tufa blocks are cut from nearby quarries; ditches and earthen ramparts work with the terrain to fix in place a settlement that already exists. The appearance of the wall marks the recognition of a fact: this community, formed through repeated contact among multiple hills and shared use of the lowland, has become something that must be protected as a whole. The “Seven Hills” and “Rome” do not precede the reality; they are the result of a long process of engineering, contact, and repeated use, slowly forced into being by time.