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 Empire’s capital city and dates to 49 A.D., when
Claudius expanded the boundary of the city. This wasn’t 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
Rome’s 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 “[
Claudius’s] 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,
Claudius’s 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 hadn’t 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.
One of the distinctive features of the
inscription is its use of the digamma, a now
obsolete letter that—according to the ancient tabloid writer Suetonius—was
Claudius’s own invention. It was one of three letters that
Claudius introduced into the
Roman alphabet: the antisigma Ↄ or ↃϹ, which resembles a backwards C or back-to-back Cs (yes, like the Chanel logo) ; Ⱶ a half H which seems to have been a short vowel sound; and the digamma Ⅎ a turned F that represented a consonantal U and sounded like a “w.” Suetonius tells us that
Claudius even wrote a book to explain the theory behind them. The letters quickly fell into disuse but they were a
part both of
Claudius’ antiquarian interest in the esoteric and a growing first century CE interest in linguistic
symbols and their function. In her excellent book Empire of Letters, MIT associate professor Stephanie Frampton explains that
Claudius’ introduction of new letters was seen as
part of a tradition whereby language and the
alphabet developed over time.
Tacitus tells us that it was once
Claudius “discovered that not even Greek
writing was begun and completed at one time” that he decided to design “some additional Latin characters.” Unlike those devised by other peoples, however, they didn’t catch on. Ironically, even the sizeable power of the emperor could not guarantee that people change the
alphabet. It’s only on
border stones and similar imperially mandated inscriptions that we can see evidence of
Claudius’s failed innovation.
His display of power is also a testimony to the limits of
his authority.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the discovery, said Mignone, is the relationship of the stones to the Mausoleum of
Augustus. Corpses were polluting objects in
antiquity and, thus, burials were supposed to take place outside of the sacred city-limits. “Was
Augustus’ massive tomb outside
Claudius’ pomerium or within it? Was
Augustus’ burial spot (which subsequently also interred
Claudius’ ashes as well) exempted from [this] exclusion due to the fact that
Augustus was an emperor and thus enjoyed special rites and privileges?” Mignone cautioned us from reading too much into this, however. While many
Italian news reports, she said, emphasized this issue, “the ancient evidence indicates that dead bodies were to be buried outside of the inhabited city limits, not the pomerium
per se.”
The publication of an official site report will hopefully bring clarity to some of the uncertainties and shed light on the relationship between the expansion of the pomerium and the tomb of
Augustus. Given that this is a
rare example of a
border stone found in the same place it was erected, Mignone hopes that further archaeological analysis will reveal more about the maintenance of the boundary and for whom it was important. Were the stones cleaned and maintained? How significant were they to people outside of religious officials or
military generals? Right now, what is clear is the boundary’s utility for emperors themselves.
Claudius monopolized the sacred boundary in new ways in order to celebrate and exhibit
his accomplishments. This novel use of topographical markers was something that later generations emperors and politicians would also exploit. As any immigrant today knows, boundaries and boundary marking are always displays of power.