Boundaries Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

According to the most recent studies, the boundary of the ager romanus antiquus coincides with the first-mile ring, or rather, one thousand paces from the Servian walls. So far, research on the borders of Rome, which has been mostly historical or historical-religious in nature, has focused on trying to find one, unified response to all the questions concerning the ancients’ conception of Rome, both as an inhabited center and a power, and, therefore, on the expansion of the Urbs and its territorium, together forming precisely the ager romanus.
What is lacking, is a substantial, overall review of all the evidence available to us on this topic using an innovative approach that allows us to overcome typically dichotomous concepts (center-suburbs) as well as models of the area as a series of concentric rings in favor of a more holistic view of the territory. In other words, a historical synthesis has yet to be followed up by a systematic archeological study providing a complete picture of the problem. Therefore, the most recent studies convey a sense of the urgent need to overhaul the entire issue, a task that is complex and, in the future, would require the development of a research project that is far broader ranging and articulated than a monographic study.
Considering the most recent interpretive paradigms, the aim of this study is to continue research on the urban border spaces of Rome, especially by testing the meaning of the border landscape at the first mile, from the origins of the inhabited area to the building of the Aurelian wall, which, since the last quarter of the 3rd century AD, created a break between the city and the countryside. Therefore, only one specific area of the band of land located at the outer limits of the first mile of the city was systematically examined: the Almone Valley. This valley lies between the first and second mile of Via Appia, one of the main roadways in Rome, and—at least starting during the late Roman Republic—must have constituted the boundary of the urban area of Rome (the so-called continentia tecta) and, therefore, of the Augustan prima regio and the Urbs. From a strictly archeological point of view, despite the immense cultural significance that has always been universally attributed to the area crossed by Via Appia, the evidence needed to reconstruct the ancient landscape of the Almone Valley is actually rather scarce, which is all the more surprising if one considers that scholars of antiquity of any period have always been fascinated by the templum Martis.
In this perspective, the overall aim of this study, which certainly makes no claims of being exhaustive on the topic and area studied, is actually to re-open the debate on a suburban area which, when compared to its immense cultural potential, has not been given the right amount of attention by scholars and public administrators, with the result of adding another piece – however small – to the history of the urban formation of Rome.