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Pomerium
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The pomerium was not a walled area (unlike the Chinese was within the ''pomerium'', but the Capitoline and Aventine Hills were not). The Curia Hostilia and the well of the Comitia in the Forum Romanum , two extremely important locations in the government of the City-state and its empire, were located within the ''pomerium''. The temple of Bellona was beyond the ''pomerium''.

  • The Magistrates who held Imperium did not have full power inside pomerium. They could have a citizen beaten, but not sentenced to death. This was symbolised by removing the axes from the Fasces carried by the magistrate's Lictor s.


  • Religious and political constraints forbade any anointed sovereign from entering the ''pomerium''. As a result, visits of state were somewhat awkward; Cleopatra , for example, never actually entered the city of Rome when she came to visit Julius Caesar .


  • Furthermore, (provincial) Promagistrates and generals were forbidden from passing beyond it, and resigned their '' Imperium '' immediately upon crossing it (as it were the superlative form of the ban on armies entering Italy). As a result, a general waiting to celebrate a triumph with his victorious troops was required to wait outside the ''pomerium'' until his triumph. The ''Comitia Centuriata'', one of the Roman Assemblies , consisting of Centuria e (voting units, but originally military batallions within the legions), was required to meet on the Campus Martius outside the ''pomerium''.

    • Pompey's Theater , where Julius Caesar was murdered, was also outside the ''pomerium'' and included a Senate chamber where the Senate could meet with the attendance of individual senators who were forbidden to cross the ''pomerium'' and thus would not have been able to meet in the Curia Hostilia .


Weapons were also banned inside the pomerium for religious and traditional reasons. Praetorian guards were allowed in only in civilian dress (toga), and were then called collectively ''cohors togata''. But it was possible to sneak in daggers (the proverbial weapon for political violence, see '' Sicarius ''). Since Julius Caesar's assassination occurred outside this boundary, the senatorial conspirators could not be charged with 'blasphemy' for carrying weapons inside the 'sacred' city.


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