Talk:Pomerium

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I found the wording "Furthermore, (provincial) promagistrates and generals were forbidden from passing beyond it," and the discussion following it confusing. After several rereadings I /think/ it means that promagistrates could not enter the pomerium, but I think that the explanation could be improved. Demerphq 13:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The reference to anointed sovereigns doesn't seem right. Anointing monarchs didn't come about until well into the Christian era, long after the pomerium and its location has been forgotten. Unless there were ancient religions that also featured anointing of sovereigns... Bvemsd (talk) 17:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC) Agreed, and requests for references here have not been responded to. I have removed the reference. Deipnosophista (talk) 09:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Pomerium --> City limits of ancient Rome?

From reading this article, it sounds like to me that pomerium was a legal city limits for ancient city of Rome. Am I getting this right or does such thing as legal city limits exists in ancient world? Thanks. --Legion (talk) 21:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it's more the sanctified city limits, having to do with the part of the city that's protected by the tutelary deities; probably what we would mean by 'legal' city limits (whether a given area received city water or fire services and such, or election precincts) is not what the pomerium was about.

My question, however, has to do with visiting diplomats. Was the senate house not within the pomerium? Because foreign ambassadors sometimes addressed the senate, so was that not within the pomerium? I'm not so great on topography. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I wonder whether foreign ambassadors would so often have addressed the Senate. I'm not sure whether what we now know as ambassadors even existed. There certainly were legates for a specific purpose; but I think they would reside nicely outside, and see their patronus in Rome, a senator of course, who brought their matter to the Senate - or of course speak to the specific politicians (say, consuls) they were addressing.

If a legate did speak in front of the whole Senate, it was probably assembled outside the pomerium, that happened sometimes.--2.236.198.248 (talk) 20:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Roman historians record several examples of embassies to Rome. Presumably being an ambassador in this sense was like being a diplomatic legatus on behalf of Rome, in that you weren't a career "ambassador" as such stationed somewhere permanently for that purpose, but were appointed or took on the role in a given situation. There are instances where an ambassador is specifically said to have addressed the Roman Senate, but we don't know much about the circumstances such as the use of interpreters (sometimes an ambassador seems to have spoken Latin, but there were also exchanges in Greek in the Senate). I'm foggy on this at the moment, but as I recall there was a ritualized procedure for sanctifying the space for meeting in other places, as you note. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

About Gellius and his hints to the extension of the Pomerium

I could not find anything, besides XIII, 14, 7, which gives a definition of "pomerium", but do not talks about "Trajan" and other Imperatores, so I deleted it. --EntroDipintaGabbia (talk) 14:49, 16 January 2014 (UTC)