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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBig Stone Found in Rome Gets Everyone All Excited
Earlier this month a rare almost 2000-year-old border stone from the reign of the Emperor Claudius was unearthed in the city of Rome. The stone, technically known as a pomerium cippus (boundary stone), marked the sacred limits of the Roman Empires capital city and dates to 49 A.D., when Claudius expanded the boundary of the city. This wasnt a simple property marker, it was part of a series of stones that divided the urban civic world of Rome from the military powers that lay outside it. Even more interestingly it is inscribed with now-lost ancient letters invented in the first century. As the first discovery of its kind in almost a century, the discovery created a media firestorm.
While border stones are well known to scholars, this one is noteworthy for being discovered in situ. It was discovered during excavations for a new sewer system underneath the recently renovated Mausoleum of Augustus in Romes historic city center. In antiquity the stones marked the pomerium, the sacred boundary that soldiers were forbidden to cross with weapons. At a press conference, Claudio Parisi Presicce, director of the Archaeological Museums of Rome, said that, The founding act of the city of Rome starts from the realization of this pomerium. The stones, in other words, are part of what founded and defined Rome. The enlargement of the pomerium in 49 A.D. had some practical effects on the city. The 139 border stones laid by Claudius now incorporated the Avertine hill, which previously lay inside of the city walls but outside of the pomerium, with the result of reconstituting Rome as the seven hilled city that we know today.
Dr. Lisa Marie Mignone, a research affiliate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU, and author of an important study of the border stones published in Historia, told The Daily Beast that [Claudiuss] goal was not to increase the civic space of Rome, so much as to celebrate his expansion of the Roman Empire itself. All the stones that marked the new boundary bear the same inscription, which states that Claudius (and his many official titles) extended and redefined the pomerium because he had increased the boundaries of the Roman people. The expansion of the boundary matched the expansion of the empire. Claudius, Mignone said, had overseen the annexing of several provinces in the east but his major accomplishment was the capture of Britain. Despite the large celebratory procession (known as Triumph) and arch he was granted in the city as a result, these conquests were hundreds of miles away. Extending the pomerium was a sacral, topographical, and physical way to showcase at Rome his renewed expansion of the boundaries of the Roman Empire. It was a way of marking his control over both foreign, domestic, civic, and sacred space.
In addition, Claudiuss expansion of the pomerium cleared up a great deal of confusion. As Mignone told me, first-century Roman historians were unclear about where the boundary actually lay until Claudius redefined it. Ancient commentators like the Seneca and Aulus Gellius struggled to explain why the Avertine hadnt been included within the sacred city from the start and could only suggest that it was an ill-omened location and that there was no clear explanation.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/big-stone-found-in-rome-gets-everyone-all-excited
ansible
(1,718 posts)Their empire is literally the foundation of our western civilization today, hell the USA is a shameless LARP of the Roman Republic.
housecat
(3,121 posts)culture they were as lopsided as we are today. Cruelty, gluttony, and sadistic entertainment was part of the same society that produced the achievements.
kskiska
(27,045 posts)I was there years ago and it was fascinating.
keithbvadu2
(36,749 posts)Early 80s... I remember the vendors outside the entrance to Pompeii. They had small metal toys and such that still had a little bit of dirt on them as if they had just been dug up. They wouldn't tell you that they were just dug up but they would let you assume so.
LittleGirl
(8,282 posts)They had running water and I was stunned at that revelation! So cool.
nilram
(2,886 posts)What a concept a civic space with civility.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,775 posts)AP article - https://apnews.com/article/europe-science-arts-and-entertainment-rome-9db54446337b9312b3f666a87cdc4efc
For some reason, the OP story reminded me of this - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56978344
Aristus
(66,310 posts)It wasnt simply soldiers who were forbidden to carry weapons inside the pomerium. Roman generals, granted imperium, or the power to command by the Senate, could only exercise that imperium outside the sacred boundary.
Once a general set foot inside the pomerium, he was automatically stripped of his command authority.