pomerium

English

WOTD – 15 August 2017

Alternative forms

• pomarium (obsolete), pomoerium, pomœrium

Etymology

Ruins of Ancient Rome (1725–1750) by Giovanni Paolo Panini, from the collection of the National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, Portugal

From Latin pōmoerium, pōmērium (“the religious boundary of a city”), either from post (“behind”) + moerus, mūrus (“wall”) + -ium (neuter form of -ius (adjective-forming suffix)), or derived from an Etruscan word.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pəʊ̆ˈmɪə.ɹɪ.əm/, /pɒ-/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /poʊˈmɛ.ɹi.əm/
• Hyphenation: po‧me‧ri‧um

Noun

pomerium (plural pomeria)

1. (historical) The ritually established and sacred formal boundary of the territory of a Roman city; the territory thus bound.
   • 1722, Joseph Bingham, “Of Cemeteries,or Burying-Places, with an Enquiry, How and When the Custom of Burying in Churches First Came In”, in Origines Ecclesiasticæ: Or, The Antiquities of the Christian Church. [...], volumes X (Giving an Account of Funeral Rites, or the Custom and Manner of Burying the Dead, Observed in the Ancient Church. With a Particular Enquiry, How and When the Custom of Burying in Churches First Came In), London: Printed for R. Knaplock at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Churchyard, →OCLC, book XXIII (Of Funeral Rites, or the Custom and Manner of Burying the Dead, Observed in the Ancient Church), page 7:

     Nay Sidonius Apollinaris aſſures us farther, that the Place where St. Peter was buried, tho' there was then a Church built over it, was ſtill in his Time, An. 470. without the Pomœria, or Space before the Walls of Rome. For ſpeaking of his Journey to Rome, he ſays, before ever he came at the Pomœria of the City, he went and ſaluted the Church of the Apoſtles, which ſtood in the Via Triumphalis.

   • 1997, [Lucius Annaeus] Seneca; C. D. N. Costa, editor and transl., “On the Shortness of Life”, in Dialogues and Letters (Penguin Classics), London; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-14-044679-1; extracted as On the Shortness of Life (Great Ideas; 1), London: Penguin Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-141-01881-2, page 22:

     But to return to the point from which I digressed, and to illustrate how some people spend useless efforts on these same topics, the man I referred to reported that Metellus in his triumph, after conquering the Carthaginians in Sicily, alone among all the Romans had 120 elephants led before his chariot, and that Sulla was the last of the Romans to have extended the pomerium, [footnote: The religious boundary of a city.] which it was the ancient practice to extend after acquiring Italian, but never provincial territory. Is it better to know this than to know that the Aventine Hill, as he asserted, is outside the pomerium for one of two reasons, either because the plebs withdrew to it or because when Remus took the auspices there the birds had not been favourable – and countless further theories that are either false or very close to lies?

   • 1998, Mary Beard, John North, Simon Price, “The Place of Religion: Rome in the Early Empire”, in Religions of Rome, volume 1 (A History), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 177:

     The myth [of Romulus and Remus] insisted on the exclusion of the Aventine from the boundary of the pomerium, emphasizing that it was a place apart from Rome proper, even if closely related to the city's sacred enclosure. And at the end of this episode, the killing of Remus underlined the sanctity of the city's boundary, dearer than any brother. The myth presents a definition of Rome. The pomerium had a physical presence too. In the imperial period it was clearly marked by massive blocks of stone, 2 m. tall and 1 m. square.

Translations

tract of land denoting the formal, sacral ambit of a Roman city

• Portuguese: pomério m

Anagrams

• Emporium, emporium, proemium

Latin

Alternative forms

• pōmoerium

Etymology

Equivalent to post- +‎ mūrus, from Proto-Italic *posti +‎ *moiros. According to De Vaan, this is likely an archaism since *pōmīrium is expected from the Proto-Italic -oi- in the non-initial syllable.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /poːˈmeː.ri.um/, [poːˈmeːriʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /poˈme.ri.um/, [poˈmɛːrium]

Noun

pōmērium n (genitive pōmēriī or pōmērī); second declension

1. bounds, limits, especially the space on either side of town walls left free of buildings

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	pōmērium	pōmēria
genitive	pōmēriī pōmērī1	pōmēriōrum
dative	pōmēriō	pōmēriīs
accusative	pōmērium	pōmēria
ablative	pōmēriō	pōmēriīs
vocative	pōmērium	pōmēria

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

References

• “pomerium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pomerium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pomerium in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “pomerium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pomerium”, in Samuel Ball Platner (1929) Thomas Ashby, editor, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press
• pomerium in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[1], pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• “pomerium”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin