Continentia

Continentia (sc. aedificia or loca) was the primary Latin term for the built-up periphery of a city that was contiguous with its mass yet outside its physical, legal, or religious territory. This ‘suburban spread’ differed essentially from the Roman concept of ‘suburban’ life, which entailed the non-urban lifestyle of the elite (to which the extremely rare noun suburbium refers; Champlin; Purcell 1987b; cf. Quilici). The visual consequences of Rome’s continentia were of especial urgency in late-1st c. B.C.; by then, the physical extent of the city’s built-up area had outgrown the circuit of the *Servian Wall and far exceeded the narrowly defined religious boundary of the pomerium (which excluded, until its Claudian reform, the *Aventine: Frézouls 378-80; Andreussi 101-3). An eyewitness to Augustan Rome, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports ‘many and large’ inhabited places outside the walls, so that it was difficult to determine ‘up to what point the city reaches and where it ceases to be city’ (Ant. Rom. 4.13.3-5). He notes the remarkable imbalance between the visible extent of buildings and the city territory as defined by its walls, which had already fallen into disrepair, and adds that numinous reasons, the daimonion, barred the Romans from expanding the city. For Strabo (5.3.7), the need for an extended ‘second line of fortifications’ was obvious, though he exults in the unimpeded ‘spectacular vistas’ toward the river and hills that the beautiful new Rome offered in the *Campus Martius (5.3.8). As the world’s capital, Rome no longer needed functioning walls and thus gave a most unusual appearance for any ancient city of power and culture — it was an “open city” (Frézouls). Two legal documents of the Caesarian and the Augustan period, the tabula Heracleensis (Crawford no. 24) in its Roman parts (if acceptable as such) and the lex Quinctia of 9 B.C. (Frontin., Aq. 129.4), explicitly include the girdle of dense extra-urban building under the city’s jurisdiction. The lex Quinctia speaks, apparently employing a standing formula, of ‘the city of Rome and those places and buildings that are, or will be, adjacent to the city’ ( ... quae loca, aedificia urbi continentia sunt, erunt). More detailed are the formulas of the tabula (line 20; cf. 56): ‘in the city of Rome and those areas within one mile where there shall be continuous habitation’ (... ubei continente habitabitur). Later, Pliny (NH 3.67) addresses the built-up borders around the city as the extrema tectorum, ‘edges of the roof-scape’ (cf. exspatantia tecta: loc. cit.), while the jurists (Ulpius Marcellus, 2nd c. A.D., referring to Alfenus; Iulius Paulus, 2nd/3rd c. A.D., and others) uniformly define the suburban spread as continentia (Dig., esp. 50.16.87, 33.9.4.4-5, 50.16.2; Frézouls 381-83; Robinson 7-8; Casavola). The lasting breakthrough in shaping a uniform administrative framework for “la Grande Rome” (Frézouls 374, 383) was accomplished by the creation, in 7 B.C., of the Augustan *Regiones Quattuordecim. The territory of the city, spatium urbis (Suet., Aug. 30), was redefined in a fundamentally new, rational system, independent from tradition and pomerial restrictions. This innovative step made Rome a truly “open city”, with the Campus Martius (as well as the *Campus Flaminius), *Trans Tiberim, and the *Emporium ranked on even urban terms with ‘the rest of the city’ (Strabo 5.3.8). As our map shows, two major areas of urban agglomeration emerge outside the walls of the old city: one toward the SW, comprised of the warehouses of the *Emporium along the *Tiber, including the development along its right bank; the other toward the NW of the walled city, extending from the Campus Flaminius and the adjacent terrain N of the *Capitoline (*Aemiliana [2]) and expanding strategically with the grand buildings of Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus further N across the Campus Martius. Compared to the focused developments on the two primary plains outside the city walls, the Trans Tiberim expansion appears rather modest, despite its long-standing close connection with the heart of the old city (s.v. *Pons Aemilius, 142 B.C.). Without disturbing too many existing buildings, it seems, the vast basin of the *Naumachia could be accommodated on Transtiberine land in 2 B.C. While traditions of an early settlement on the *Ianiculum were still alive, the ridge may have carried in the Augustan period no more than an occasional shrine and the walls of an isolated military outpost still used in the mid-1st c. B.C. (*“Arx Ianiculensis”; for the claimed settlement, Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 1.73.3). On the opposite side of Rome, NE and E of the *Quirinal, *Viminal, and *Esquiline, the city had not expanded massively beyond the Servian Wall and the huge earthwork of the *Agger (among the ‘the leading wonders of the world’ for Pliny, NH 3.67); in fact, large intramural areas of both the Quirinal and Viminal were free of dense urban development (s.v. *Horti Sallustiani). On the Esquiline, however, a densely built-up cityscape inside the wall must have contrasted with a green belt of splendid horti and parks, extending outside by the Augustan period (s.v. *Esquiline Horti; *Horti Maecenatis). On the SE flank of the city, in the Via Appia valley (*Vallis: Via Appia), a similarly contrasting situation may have existed (s.v. *Camenae; *Horti Asiani), although at least one vicus settlement, established during the Republican period, has been attested along the *Via Appia’s first extra-urban mile (*Vicus Sulpicius; cf. *Vicus Honoris et Virtutis). In all, the extra-urban sprawl was certainly less evenly distributed than as indicated by the Berlin Model (fig. 1 above; von Hesberg; cf. Purcell 1987a). Our map, more rigorously based on available evidence, leaves white the areas lacking sufficient information; further investigations may substantiate more or less intensive sprawl in these areas. This holds especially true for the N Transtiberine grounds, the extramural NW slope of the Quirinal, the SE ridges of both the *Caelian and Aventine outside the wall, and the area S of the Emporium along the Tiber. On the other hand, the areas shown as ‘built up’ on our map are by no means of a uniform urban density (cf. *Aqueducts, Water Supply, and Population Density), yet the absence of sufficiently balanced data makes it ill-advised, at this point, to introduce categorical area differentiations. It also remains unclear — posing another challenge for further research — to what degree the network of roads radiating from the city was hemmed in during the Augustan period by built-up areas of tomb sites, by entire “tomb-suburbs” (Purcell 1987b, 40). For lack of sufficient evidence, they remain rather empty on our map, more so than they probably were, although one aspect shows up in sufficient clarity: Augustan Rome was surrounded by a ‘girdle’ of most impressive, unusually-shaped tomb monuments, among which Augustus’ own *Mausoleum set the tone. The Lexicon topographicum suburbanum, currently in preparation by A. La Regina, will set a thoroughly new basis for our knowledge of the monuments and sites in ancient Rome’s surroundings, from the line of the Aurelian Walls to the territorial borders of the neighboring towns.