of the city – its pomerium– using the “traditional” Roman method of delineation
by plow, a method some Romans understood themselves to have inherited from Etruria
(Dion. H. 1.88; Ov. Fast.4.819–36; Plut. Romulus11; dissenting in one respect
or another, Livy 1.44.3–5, and Virg. Aen.1.419–26, 5.750 – 8). But they can have
had little if any evidence for that event. It is no doubt significant that Cato the Elder
in the second quarter of the second century bcregarded the drawing of city bound-
aries by plow as customary.
For the founders of cities used to yoke a bull on the right and a cow on the inside;
then, clad in Gabine fashion, that is, with part of the toga covering one’s head and part
cinched, head covered by part of the toga, they took up a curved plowshare, so that
all the turned-up soil would fall inside, and with a furrow so drawn they designated the
place for the walls. They picked up the plow at the places for gates. (Cato, Origines1,
frag. 18 Peter =Servius ad Virg. Aen.7.755)It is likewise significant that Varro in the age of Cicero ascribes the ritual to Etruria
and, by etymological sleight of hand, argues that all urbes– all cities – were neces-
sarily so founded; hence, he concludes, “all our colonies are described in ancient
writings as cities, because they were founded in the same way as Rome” (Varro, Ling.
5.143). But Varro himself knows of pomerial boundary stones from only two sites
- Rome and Aricia. It is rather from thenextgeneration – from the Caesarian foun-
dations at Capua in Italy and Urso in Spain, and the early Augustan foundations
in southern Asia Minor – that we have evidence for the widespread use of plows
in colonial foundations (Capua: ILS6308; Urso: Lex Ursonensisc. 73; Asia Minor:
Levick 1967: 35–7). If, therefore, the practice pursued in these late colonies was
notionally modeled on that at Rome, we should probably regard it as modeled on
a self-understanding achieved in light of antiquarian research and no small amount
of invention.
The foundation of a Roman city required several further official actions beyond
the drawing of the pomerium. These are attested in various configurations in late
republican texts – none, alas, produced by witnesses to the rituals of foundation, at
least so far as we know. The closest thing to such testimony now extant is a dedi-
cation in honor of Titus Annius Luscus, one the triumvirs dispatched by the senate
to settle supplementary colonists in Aquileia in 169 bc:
T(itus) Annius T(iti) f(ilius) tri(um) vir.
Is hance aedem
faciundam dedit
dedicavitque, legesq(ue)
composivit deditque,
senatum ter coptavit.Titus Annius (Luscus), son of Titus, triumvir (for the settlement of colonists). He pro-
vided for the construction of this temple and dedicated it; he composed and delivered
laws (to the colony); and three times he enrolled its senate. (AE1996, 685)Exporting Roman Religion 433