Pomerium confusion

[Xipuloxx]

Hi all,

I'm hoping there are some experts on ancient Rome here who can answer a simple question:

What was the law in the Imperial era (let's say AD 70 if it matters, since that's when my game is set!) regarding the pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome? I've heard and read various things which contradict each other.

One source says no weapons were allowed inside (which I'd think couldn't be literally true, as surely a patrician family would have possessed ancestral weapons which they could hardly be forbidden from keeping in their house -- besides, surely gladiators used weapons within the pomerium).

Another says only soldiers were forbidden from carrying weapons within the pomerium, and that private citizens could carry them with impunity (I find that equally hard to believe).

I'd have thought that perhaps the law was that weapons could not be carried in public places, and if you needed to transport them they needed to be wrapped up in some way so that they couldn't be used without a time-consuming process of unwrapping or whatever. But I can find nothing to support this supposition!

Published scenarios don't help much. I'm currently running The Legacy of Arrius Lurco, and it not only has the Cohotes Urbanae openly carrying and using weapons, it also has a house on the Caeline Hill guarded by armed gladiators. It's possible the author just decided to use some dramatic licence, but it's just made me more confused!

After all, it does seem that it would be difficult for the Cohortes Urbanae to keep order if they couldn't carry weapons. Maybe they used staves that could double as weapons? Again, I can find no evidence. And when the scenario mentions that the Emperor's cavalry escort is also based on the Caelian Hill, I start wondering if they weren't allowed weapons either!

I am aware that the pomerium wasn't contiguous with the walls of Rome, so that some places were deliberately outside it so the rules wouldn't apply...

Anyone?

[mr_mitts]

I'm not a Roman historian, but since the Pomerium was not the entirety of the city of Rome but a region within it (much as the City of London is only a square mile sited within Greater London), I've always assumed it was quite literally a "no-weapon zone" except among lictors and Praetorian Guard and the Cohortes were similarly unarmed. Not that weapons weren't smuggled in or available to those policing it in emergencies. Presumably in the scenario, as you say, the armed Urbanes and Gladiator guards are in Rome (city) but not within the borders of the Pomerium.

[Xipuloxx]

Thanks, Mr_mitts, but the impression I have is that most of Rome was within the pomerium. I may be wrong about that, but the pomerium was Rome for legal purposes, so I'd expect that most of the physical city was within it. It was extended several times (presumably as the city grew).

The wikipedia article mentions that not all the seven hills were inside it, but doesn't really indicate how extensive it was. But I'm reluctant to put too much faith in internet sources, especially since they seem to contradict one another. One simply states that the Aventine hill wasn't included, another claims it was included in Claudius's extension, still another claims it still wasn't included in the 2nd century.

[mr_mitts]

I do know Pliny claimed the pomerium was 13-miles around, which is rather small considering the size of Rome's urbs. Also "Romans" was a far smaller group than that which lived in the "Greater Roman city": slaves, serfs and other "lower castes" (that is, plebs) were rarely included in the count. The fact they lived outside the official boundary of Rome proper likely only served to make the difference more obvious.

Google Books has a number of texts on the subject. These:
- http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2...merium&f=false
- http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=K...merium&f=false
- http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i...merium&f=false

have some info also.

[wombat1]

If I recall correctly, the prohibition is that a general (or other official like a governor, or proconsular or propraetorian official) cannot bring his troops within the pomerium unless expressly permitted by the Senate (in a celebration of a triumph, for example.) The officials sent out to provinces do not return within the pomerium unless permitted to do so, or ordered to do so, or until their appointment expires.

Of course, I can never find things when I want them, but I saw a reference to the lex Julia de vi publica as the source of a prohibition from carrying weapons generally in the Empire, unless permission or an exception was given.

Note that in the novels of Lindsey Davis, the Falco series, which are carefully and painstakingly researched, it is rare for law abiding citizens (or even edgy ones like Falco) to go armed unless they specifically go armed with intent to look for trouble, or expect it. It is remarkable even when the bad guys are armed. Certainly the gladiators do not have weapons legally--those are issued for the ring and taken away at the end of it. Memories of Spartacus are not fresh and new, but neither are they forgotten. What makes the gladiators dangerous as body guards in such an environment is that they are fit and trained to fight bare handed as well as with weapons.

At the same time, the vigiles carry staffs or clubs as a symbol of their office, which can be used to beat deserving citizens. It seems anyone can carry a club or chair pole legally. The urban cohort, being under the command of the Urban Prefect, and the praetorian guard, being under the command of the Praetorian Prefect, both (technically, not really) offices within the gift of the Senate (which always appoints the nominee of Caesar, of course), and usually (not always) very sound bureaucrats of senatorial rank, keep order and therefore form an exception.

Discrete, well-behaved, (wealthy) citizens, can, of course, take some measures for their protection. And as long as no one notices, one can be discretely armed as well. This will of course not apply to junior investigators who want to be represented with tooled up legionary figures at all times--full armor, two javelins, a gladius, a pugio, a rectangular shield, and four lawn darts. (The lawn darts are based on a misreading of a source by one wargame rules publisher, but some clever player will find it for sure.)

[Furt]

A great question and nicely answered. I would assume that anything larger than a small knife or a tool come weapon, would draw suspicious onlookers who would alert the authorities and or take matters into their own hands.

The urban cohort, being under the command of the Urban Prefect, and the praetorian guard, being under the command of the Praetorian Prefect, both (technically, not really) offices within the gift of the Senate (which always appoints the nominee of Caesar, of course), and usually (not always) very sound bureaucrats of senatorial rank, keep order and therefore form an exception.

Would the Praetorians be armed and armored on official business? I heard they went around toga'ed up?

I have a couple of questions along similar lines: -

If one wanted to acquire a gladius or piece of armor, how would one go about it in Rome?

What would the punishment be for being caught in possession of said weapons?

[wombat1]

Yes, except in times of extreme political disorder, the tendency seems to be to regulate weapons. Even then commentary is shocked at the idea that there might be violence in times of disorder. Lictors in this area traditionally remove the axes from their fasces, as the magistrates can only order citizens beaten, not put to death (I suspect that is a power reserved for the citizen assemblies, but I am not certain of it and have not dug into the matter.)

The Lacus Curtius site has a couple of nice articles about pomerium:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...Pomoerium.html

This gives the link to Tacitus' definition, and lays it out succinctly so that it might be easily followed on a map of the ancient city..


This second link is to another article in the same site has a map, and also describes the extension made by Claudius, which would be probably the pomerium limits in effect in 70, to give a further reply to the original post. Vespasian would expand the pomerium futher, but may or may not have had time to do so. The Claudian pomerium according to the article is roughly the limits imposed by the Aurelian Wall.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/.../Pomerium.html

A great question and nicely answered. I would assume that anything larger than a small knife or a tool come weapon, would draw suspicious onlookers who would alert the authorities and or take matters into their own hands.



Would the Praetorians be armed and armored on official business? I heard they went around toga'ed up?

I have a couple of questions along similar lines: -

If one wanted to acquire a gladius or piece of armor, how would one go about it in Rome?

What would the punishment be for being caught in possession of said weapons?

Now turning to Furt's questions. Daggers and small weapons could probably easily be hidden and brought in. Chair staves and clubs and sticks are also something that one could carry. As for the onlookers and a hidden sword, I have that old joke running through my mind--"Is that your gladius or are you just glad to see me?" This prohibition, being religious in nature, applies to the authorities as well, hence the comment about the praetorians going about in toga. Most of the literature one sees, though, in modern novels, has them wandering around fully equipped. So one may prefer to do that instead to meet player expectations.

Carrying weapons in the pomerium is a violation of the sacred nature of the spot, and so would be sacrilege. I would think the punishment would be within the province of the pontifex maximus--after Augustus assumed this office on the death of Lepidus, the Emperors maintained the position. While I don't know the exact punishment, I suspect it is unlikely one is going to be let off with a caution.

As for how one obtains a weapon or armor, one has access to it if one is a legionary or auxiliary, or knows such a fellow. It being Rome, one can always suppose that these things sometimes fell off the wagon, if that is necessary for the literary flow of the game.

On the frontier, the restrictions may be a little bit looser, but Salway, in the Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain, indicates that even in this case, permission had to be granted to arm the locals against invasions.

[Furt]

As for how one obtains a weapon or armor, one has access to it if one is a legionary or auxiliary, or knows such a fellow. It being Rome, one can always suppose that these things sometimes fell off the wagon, if that is necessary for the literary flow of the game.

On the frontier, the restrictions may be a little bit looser, but Salway, in the Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain, indicates that even in this case, permission had to be granted to arm the locals against invasions.

In the SPQR novel "The Catiline Conspiracy", I believe that Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, perused a market stall of swords and daggers in Rome, although of course this is set in the Republic.

[wombat1]

There is an extraordinarily long thread discussing this point, here:

http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/1061...-bearing-arms/

It sheds rather more darkness than light, I am afraid, however, from the posts we can find these gems:

1. The ban on the carrying of weapons is not revoked until Valentinian III (419-455 AD)

2. There is a ban put into effect in the Theodosian Code of 364, which may be the ban revoked by Valentinian. This may be further restating earlier bans.

3. It is not clear what is being banned, either the carrying of weapons in the pomerium, in the larger city, or in the Empire.

4. Remember the Empire is not a unitary whole. Some cities which receive rights from Augustus onwards may have developed their own ban; any city with its own government--civitates or municipia, would have been able to form their own regulations on this subject. It is not clear what is going on in the frontier or the countryside.

5. No one seems to be quoting any sources other than those of Valentinian and Theodosius. So I suspect that not a lot is known about this.

Looking at the Roma sub rosa series of Saylor and the Falco series of Davis, people seem to be running around armed all the time, when the plot requires it. This is rather more in Saylor's time frame, set in the turbulent Republic, and less so in the Falco series, where daggers or their lack are treated as a conscious event in the text--tooling up is important.

In any event, Furt, one has to impose one's own vision of Rome on one's own campaign. Since most of the culturally appropriate weapons available to the Romans do no more than a 1d8 +db damage, and many of the Mythos nogoodnikies seem to come with 9 points of armor, this is ever a self-solving problem. I shouldn't think that control is very tight--the administrative structure is formidable by ancient standards but not so much by our own.