Rome’s Sacred Boundary

The pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome, was of enormous importance in the history of the Eternal City. Prof. Koortbojian (Princeton) takes the reader on a tour through the history of this boundary. He begins with an outline of its history, from its semi-mythic origins, when Romulus supposedly marked it out in the earth with a plow at the founding of the city, and carries the story of its role and importance through the history of early kings and the Republic, and then concentrates on its evolution from the time of Caesar, some seven hundred years later, to that of Constantine, nearly a thousand years from its creation.

Koortbojian draws on literary accounts, art, and archaeology, to discusses the origins of the pomerium – which were rather a mystery even to the Romans – and the ways in which it affected life, religion, war, and politics. The pomerium did not indicate the physical limits of the city, which sprawled well beyond it from earliest times. Rather, the pomerium defined the boundary between the realm of civic life from that of military endeavor. This was perhaps most clearly symbolized by the fact that a man could not appear under arms inside the pomerium, to the extent that even a triumphing general and his troops paraded within it without arms or armor, and apparently statues of men in arms were limited to areas beyond the pomerium. This boundary was formally extended from time to time, and altered in other ways, but, though violated in times of civil strife, it remained of importance into the Fourth Century.

Crossing the Pomerium is a very good read, for the specialist in Roman studies.

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Note: Crossing the Pomerium is also available in several e-editions.

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