The pomoerium (from the Latin preposition post 'behind' + noun murum 'wall') was an area around the circumference of a city. Rome, like Etruscan cities, had a pomoerium. This perimeter was marked by pillars called cippi pomoerii. The line was originally drawn using a plough which engraved a line in the dirt and made a mound on the city side. This mound is the "wall" of the pomoerium. It changed over time.


In Rome, almost everyone was buried beyond the limits of the city or pomoerium, which is thought to have been a disease-reducing practice from the early days when burial was more common than cremation. The Campus Martius, although an important part of Rome, was beyond the pomoerium during the Republic and for part of the Empire.

Examples: In the modern world, people refer to a pomerial rule according to which foreign temples had to be located beyond the pomerium. ?In "Foreign Cults in Republican Rome: Rethinking the Pomerial Rule (Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. 47 (2002), pp. 1-1) author Eric M. Orlin says no ancient author mentions such a tradition or rule.

"[I]ts importance in regard to burials, to imperium, and to the taking of auspices is documented in the ancient sources and has been well studied by a number of scholars. It is clearly a religious boundary of some significance, and it may well have been one factor among many that affected the choice of location for new temples. But it should be clear that we cannot posit the existence of an exclusionary rule that made the pomerium the decisive factor in the location of new cults in Rome."

Go to Other Ancient / Classical History Glossary pages beginning with the letter

a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | wxyz