Crossing the Pomerium - by Michael Koortbojian (Hardcover)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br> "The Romans' early establishment of the sanctity of their city and the desire to protect it -- from not only the ravages of military conflict beyond its confines but the dangers of authoritarian rule at home -- took a variety of forms, legal, political, and military. These were codified in social practices, and thus established behaviors and rituals that, as they set these practices in the public eye, served as a continuing self-justification of Rome's growing dominance in the Mediterranean world. Koortbojian examines the transformation of Rome from Caesar to Constantine from several different points of view to reveal the primordial distinction between matters civic and military, and how the 'crossing of the pomerium,' the evanescent boundary that divided them, provided the crux of a historical interpretation of distinctly Roman endeavors. Koortbojian sets the background and then expands upon the long-vexed problem of the presence of men at arms in the city of Rome; long-standing legal and political practices that were adapted in the face of new military engagements and the crisis of civil war; and how Roman commanders attended to established religious practices while on campaign, and how those practices mirrored traditional customs and inverted the manner of their performance so as to acknowledge a profound Roman distinction between civic and military acts. As a whole, the book demonstrates how certain fundamental principles of law, politics, and military life -- and the practices that followed from them -- were interwoven in a narrative of continuity and change across three centuries of Roman imperial rule"<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><b>A multifaceted exploration of the interplay between civic and military life in ancient Rome</b> <p/>The ancient Romans famously distinguished between civic life in Rome and military matters outside the city--a division marked by the <i>pomerium</i>, an abstract religious and legal boundary that was central to the myth of the city's foundation. In this book, Michael Koortbojian explores, by means of images and texts, how the Romans used social practices and public monuments to assert their capital's distinction from its growing empire, to delimit the proper realms of religion and law from those of war and conquest, and to establish and disseminate so many fundamental Roman institutions across three centuries of imperial rule. <p/><i>Crossing the Pomerium</i> probes such topics as the appearance in the city of Romans in armor, whether in representation or in life, the role of religious rites on the battlefield, and the military image of Constantine on the arch built in his name. Throughout, the book reveals how, in these instances and others, the ancient ideology of crossing the <i>pomerium</i> reflects the efforts of Romans not only to live up to the ideals they had inherited, but also to reconceive their past and to validate contemporary practices during a time when Rome enjoyed growing dominance in the Mediterranean world. <p/>A masterly reassessment of the evolution of ancient Rome and its customs, <i>Crossing the Pomerium</i> explores a problem faced by generations of Romans--how to leave and return to hallowed city ground in the course of building an empire.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Koortbojian's study brilliantly parses the evidence, using both texts and images, to identify how the <i>pomerium</i> operated as a Roman concept, rather than just a physical boundary.<b>---Nicholas Wagner, <i>Bryn Mawr Classical Review</i></b><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Michael Koortbojian</b> is the Moses Taylor Pyne Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. He is the author of <i>The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus</i> and <i>Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi.</i>
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