OF THE CITY OF ROME

...gives the form of the walls. Livy Titus Livius, the Roman historian. records that the ancient walls were completed using squared stone after the city was burned by the Gauls Referring to the Sack of Rome in 390 BC., as the traces still visible in the gates of the City itself denote. Near the walls was the pomerium term: pomerium. A sacred, ritual boundary of the city of Rome, which had legal and religious significance; it was a strip of land where building and plowing were prohibited., that is, a certain space behind the wall which it was not lawful either to plow or to inhabit. This is similar to what exists now in our city of Florence, both inside and outside the walls, marked by boundary posts, so that anyone can easily walk there for the sake of leisure. However, in Rome in our time, this custom is not observed, as both vineyards and private houses are joined directly to the city walls. For the walls were enlarged by several Emperors, as appears above the Porta Portuensis A gate in the Aurelian Walls near the Tiber, originally built by Emperor Aurelian and later restored. on a stone inscribed with these letters:

TO THE IMPERIAL CAESARS, OUR LORDS, THE MOST INVINCIBLE PRINCES ARCADIUS AND HONORIUS Emperors who ruled in the late 4th and early 5th centuries AD; this inscription commemorates their restoration of the city's defenses against the Goths., Victors and Triumphers, forever August. On account of the restoration of the Walls, Gates, and Towers of the Eternal City, the immense piles of ruins having been cleared away. At the suggestion of the Most Distinguished original: "V.C." (Vir Clarissimus), a title of senatorial rank. and illustrious soldier and master of both branches of the military, he established their statues for the perpetuity of their names.

Likewise, regarding the pomerium, in this year 1509, letters on a Travertine stone original: "lapide Tyburtino." A local limestone used extensively in Roman architecture. recently excavated not far from the Chancery The Palazzo della Cancelleria, a Renaissance palace in Rome. indicate the following:

TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS, SON OF DRUSUS, CAESAR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS, PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, IN THE 8TH YEAR OF HIS TRIBUNICIAN POWER, ACCLAIMED EMPEROR 16 TIMES, CONSUL 4 TIMES, CENSOR, FATHER OF THE COUNTRY, HAVING ENLARGED THE PO[MERIUM]... original: "auctis po[merio]." This inscription records the Emperor Claudius (r. 41–54 AD) expanding the sacred boundary of the city after his conquests.