[dredmorbius]

The Romans were not unaware of principles on the siting and prospects of new settlements. See Vitruvius's De Architectura, or The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy by Alain Bresson:

As early as the fourth century BCE, ancient Greek city planning was very far advanced. When possible—that is, when a city was to be founded or refounded—the site was carefully chosen, taking into account first of all climatic conditions. Drawing on a tradition that goes back to the physician and hygienist Hippocrates and to Aristotle, and whose “intermediaries could only be the architects who built the Hellenistic cities,” the Roman architect Vitruvius recommended choosing a site where the temperature remained moderate and that was far from swamps, in order to avoid miasmas and fogs.

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10376.html