POMERIUM

A name given by the Romans to the space, originally along the city-wall within and without, which was left vacant and reckoned holy. This space was marked off by stones, and in respect to the auspices formed the limit between city and country. [See Livy, i 44, and Cicero, De Natura Deorum ii 11, ed. J. B. Mayor.) The old Pomerium remained unchanged until the time of Sulla; after him it was again extended by Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian and Titus, Hadrian, and probably also Trajan and Aurelian. An extension of the Pomerium was only admissible on the ground of an extensionof the legal boundaries of the Empire. [Tacitus, Ann. xii 23.]