Early civilizations were greatly influenced by geography as the basics needed for sustaining life and natural barriers form invasion provided safety and sustenance for the peoples. As the Neolithic revolution came forth and people started to develop agricultural techniques which would allow for stable food for the year, the people would settle where geography offered the least amount of barriers and the most amount of positive attributes to sustain the civilization. That is, civilization was able to come forth in Egypt due to the barriers with the desert and the Nile River which provided sustenance for crops. In Greece, civilizations began with the coastal areas as the land was great for crops while there was access to the sea for trade and barriers for protection with the mountains and limited access to the Greece cities. The same holds true with the Sumerians and the Mesopotamian area with mountains for protection and rivers for crops and sustenance. The combination of barriers for protection and water for crops would lead to people settling in areas which offered the most possible amount of attributes for civilizations to develop while at the same time offering natural barriers for protection.
The cradle of civilization is considered to be the area around Mesopotamia with the Tigress and Euphrates rivers when the Sumerians developed an early civilization, In Sumerian, there was a code of laws, there was a stable area for crop production, and the rivers offered flooding for the land to recover with new silt and for drinking water for people. The rivers also offered travel potential for trade, and the land was protected by natural barriers with the mountains and the desert which had to be crossed. This allowed the civilization to develop and grow with more people that could ever settle in such an area if they were still hunting and gathering. This also allowed other people to see what was going on here and provided ideas for people to develop civilizations in other areas.
One of these other areas was with Egypt as they developed after Sumerian and the Mesopotamia area. The lands around Egypt were great for natural barriers form invasion as you had to cross mountains form one side, and desert from other directions. The Nile river also would flood on a schedule every year which not only provided new silt to lie over crop lands to help them recover, but also because the Nile flooded on a somewhat regular schedule the people could count on this to plant and harvest various crops. The Nile also provided drinking and bathing water, and access to travel for trade and movement of their people. The geography of Egypt were great for the next level of civilizations after Sumerian and offered the advantages of the Nile flooding on schedule and additional barriers for protection that Sumerian did not have.
The next level of civilization which would come was the area which was where Greece would develop. People already learned how to cultivate fields by this time, and the access to the ocean and water from mountains provided great land for crops and protection the protective barriers were the mountains on one side and the limited access to the cities form the sea form the other side. This allowed the Greeks to have regular crop rotations and great weather for long growing seasons as well as access t0 the sea for trade and movement of their people. They would use the access to the sea to move out and begin to take over other lands while at the same time it was difficult for other people such as the Phoenicians to come forward and conquer Greece because they had the natural barriers for protection and the lands to develop crops to be able to have a large population that they could sustain.
The Romans would then follow through with what they learned from the earlier civilizations, and because the lands of modern Italy provided natural barriers for protection and great opportunities for crops and crop rotations, as well as access to the sea and access to drinking and bathing water, the Romans were able to sustain a larger population, and they even started to conquer people to get slaves to develop the fields for more people to be sustained. The Romans also took advantage of what they learned form other people to be able to start new crop and agricultural techniques for their lands and those people they controlled, and they had such a surplus of a population that they were able to field a professional army unlike any the world had ever seen before. The combination of learning from others, access to the sea for trade and movement, barriers form the mountains and sea for protection, and the lands which could grow many crops offered the Romans more opportunities than the people before them.
The Romans were the next level of civilization which came upon an evolution of people and ideas over time. The culmination of shared ideas allowed the Romans to have an empire and control many lands which other civilizations were unable to do as they didn’t have the same size population, or the control of cops and agriculture in the same manner as the Romans. The earlier civilizations needed other barriers for protection from invasion and couldn’t have begun the early civilizations in the lands of modern Italy, but the same factors would allow for their development, access to drinking water, access to travel channels, and barriers for protection from invasion.