The evolution of the sedentary settlements must have revolved around the topology of domestication, which became the core of sovereignty from which the transformation of the earth (terra) into land or terrain and, later on, into political territory began to take place. The habits that later took shape in the royal hunting gardens and parks were at the center of this transformation. In fact, the Greek idea of polis, understood not only as “city” but also as territory and citizenship, expresses the closed structure of the paradeisos by elevating a walled citadel (acropolis) that serves as the religious and administrative center of the city-state and serves as a watchtower for possible invaders (0.27). Once the city begins to spread around the walled height—the acropolis of Athens and the Palatine Hill in the case of Rome—the space known as suburb (from latin suburbium) arises, which in the originary cities literally referred to what was below the urb.

From there on the topology of the paradeisos is evident in all urban iterations. Indeed, one of the possible etymologies of the Latin urbs (walled city) is the proto-Indo-European werb, which means “to bend, to turn” and could be interpreted as a closing in on itself. According to linguist Michiel de Vaan, this idea would seem to be confirmed by the Hittite warpa, “enclosure,” and the Tocharian A warpi, “garden” (0.3). From the domus grows the paradeisos, its center and originary locus of sovereignty, and around it grows the walled city, which acts as an armor that allows its inhabitants to isolate themselves from alterity, a matter entirely evident until the Middle Ages in the structure of the burgh, the walled city that grew around a castle (from the German burg).