Pomerium, fines and ager Romanus: understanding Rome's first boundary

Abstract

The pomerium represents, in Roman tradition, the “first boundary” marked by Romans and their first intervention on the territory. It is such in a chronological sense, since its realization is attributed to Romulus and therefore connected with the very foundation of the city, and also in an ontological sense, since over the centuries it defined the limit marking the territory of the Urbs from the “rest of the world” .