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Il pomerium e l’identità romana: un legame più forte del sangue

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Abstract

In the ancient world borders defined both the land and the people who lived within their boundaries, as well as the land and people who lived outside of these boundaries. The practice of defining the sacred boundary of a city was the most important element in the process of building a distinct cultural identity. As the legend tells, the first action of king Romulus was to mark a line delineating the territory of Rome. This sacred limit, the pomerium, determined the members of the Roman citizens’ community; later becoming a strong symbol of their bond of union. The main purpose of this article is to examine the sacred boundary of Rome from a socio-anthropological perspective, to understand its symbolic, religious importance to Roman identity: a significance so powerful it allowed Romulus to kill his own brother for crossing it.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: April 21, 2017 | Accepted: May 9, 2017 | Language: it

Keywords Identity • Pomerium • Remus • Romulus • Memory

Copyright © 2017 Antonietta Castiello. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/6969-167-6/SR-9-1


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