Ager Romanus: Difference between revisions

With the proclamation of the [[Roman Republic]] in 509 BC, all the territory occupied by Romans in "[[Old Latium|Latium vetus]]" came to be proclaimed [[ager publicus]], equivalent to state lands today, which were held by the state and could be granted to private citizens.<ref name="LigtNorthwood2008">{{cite book |author1last1=Luuk de Ligt |first1=Luuk |last2=Northwood |author2first2=S. J. Northwood|title=People, Land, and Politics: Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy 300 BC-AD 14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4toKjuTLOQUC&pg=PA245 |year=2008 |publisher=BRILLBrill |isbn=978-90-04-17118-53 |pages=245–245ff }}</ref> The Roman municipal authorities of this era were the [[consul]]s. In effect, Rome was a gigantic city-territory continuously expanding across Europe.<ref name="Fulminante2014">{{cite book |authorlast=Fulminante |first=Francesca Fulminante|title=The Urbanisation of Rome and Latium Vetus: From the Bronze Age to the Archaic Era |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XE5kAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |date=10 February 2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-03035-0 |pages=123–123ff }}</ref>

[[Augustus|Octavian Augustus]] founded the office of ''[[praefectus urbisurbi]]'' and other offices which divided the administration of the city of Rome from that of the Roman Empire. Thus was solved the problem of delimiting the territory of the [[municipium]] of Rome from the territory of the rest of the empire -– besides the ''Regio I Latii et Campaniae'' administered by a specific governor, the confines of the municipal authority of Rome came to be fixed at the "centesimum lapidem" (i.e. one hundred miles) on each of the [[:Category:Roman roads in Italy|via consularis]] converging on Rome. So, ''de iure'', the Roman municipal authority controlled the whole of [[Lazio]] and part of Tuscany from [[Talamone]] to [[Terracina]] and also parts of [[Abruzzo]] and [[Umbria]].

After the fall of the empire, the ''[[praefectus urbisurbi]]'' continued to be elected and did not come to be totally deprived of their power even by the advancing [[Pope|papal]] power which effectively became the municipal government of Rome.

The Ager Romanus, as a political zone subject to the municipium of Rome, theoretically continued to extend ''ad centesimum lapidem'', but in practice many of its regions ended up in [[Lombards|Lombard]] hands, with still others managed by the religious authorities or the pope, who were beginning to manage their territories by means of ''[[Patrimony of Saint Peter|patrimonia]]'' and ''[[Domusculta|domuscultae]]''.

The ''motu proprio'' of 6 July 1817 by [[Pope Pius VII]] established the boundaries of the municipium of Rome, assigning to the capital its present communal territory as well as the present [[Comune|commune]]s of [[Fiumicino]], [[Pomezia]] and [[Ardea, (RM)Lazio|Ardea]]. The confines of the Comunità di Roma were thus finally defined and no longer nebulous, and these limits ended at the constitution of the commune of Pomezia (also including present-day Ardea) following its lasting foundation during the "[[Pontine marshesMarshes|"bonifica fascista"]]" and—inand – in the 1990s—of1990s – of Fiumicino.

{{reflist|220em}}

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