praefectura Urbis

The conference will be held at the Royal Academy of Spain at Rome (Real Academia de España en Roma), on April 3 - 4, 2020. The purpose of the conference is to explore the transformation of public space and administrative activities in Republican and Imperial Rome through an interdisciplinary exploration of the topography of power. The emergence of the Roman Republic produced a reorganization of the administrative structures, leading to the emergence of various entities and institutions responsible for organization and governance of Rome, its civic life and public spaces. In different ways, this spatial model was exported to the colonies with the expansion of the Republic. Throughout the Roman world, building projects created spaces, the topography of the city, for different civic purposes: for the meetings of assemblies, senate meetings, the administration of justice, the public treasury, and the management of the city through different magistracies, offices and even archives. These administrative spaces-open and closed-characterized the Roman life throughout the Republic and High Empire, until the profound administrative and judicial transformations of the Dominate. This conference aims to study the public and private spaces related to administration through the urban development, the existing interrelation between the different administrative bodies, the analysis of the architecture of the spaces already discovered and the study of the written sources. We will try to find an answer to the dilemmas such as where did the administration work? Were there offices and where were they located? Were there social class differences between the different levels of administration?

PS - Please, disregard my affiliation to JHU.

The location of the Temple of Tellus is still debated, and is one of the key questions in the reconstruction of the urban landscape between the Velia and the Carine. By re-eval- uating the archaeological data, epigraphs, lit- erary sources and information from ancient sources of the late-Renaissance era, the arti- cle reconstructs the history of the Tellus building and its neighborhood over the cen- turies. Drawing up maps of that period illus- trates the transformations that took place in this city quarter from the earRepublican Age to the early Imperial Age, until the late classical era, a period when the ancient place of worship assumed new significance in rela- tion to the City Prefecture.

A thorough re-reading of the sources allows to admit the possibility of a continuation
of Symmachus’ mandate beyond the February 24th, 385 A.D. limit; it also allows to
refute the thesis that ascribes the expulsion of the peregrini from Rome to the praefectus urbi Symmachus.

Con la aceptación del cristianismo como religión oficial del Imperio, el proceso de hostilidad hacia los otros cultos, ya originado casi un siglo antes al final del reinado de Constantino, se verá reforzado y ampliado con la promulgación de numerosos decretos que muy pronto comenzaron a poner en apuros tanto a los practicantes del paganismo como a los considerados heréticos. Pese a que las acciones gubernamentales junto a las medidas de la propia Iglesia propiciaron el cierre de un creciente número de templos y la clausura de numerosos cultos e instituciones educativas, ciertas prácticas y pervivencias del mundo clásico perduraron a través del tiempo y siguieron manifestándose en periodos sorprendentemente tardíos. Ofreceremos aquí un caso en concreto, el del colaborador del emperador Procopio Antemio, Mesio Febo Severo, cónsul en el año 470 pese a su abierta condición de filósofo y pagano.

With the acceptance of Christianity as official religion of the Empire, the process of hostility towards the other cults, originated almost a century before at the end of the reign of Constantine, will be strengthened and expanded by the enactment of numerous decrees which soon began to trouble both the practitioners of paganism and those considered heretical among Christians. Although government actions along with the measures of the very Church led to the closure of a growing number of temples and of numerous cults and educational institutions, certain practices and survivals
of the Classical world persisted over time and continued to manifest in surprisingly late periods. We will offer here a specific case, that of the collaborator of the emperor Procopius Anthemius, Messius Phoebus Severus, consul in the year 470 despite of his open condition of philosopher and pagan.

Con la aceptación del cristianismo como religión oficial del Imperio, el proceso de hostilidad hacia los otros cultos, ya originado casi un siglo antes al final del reinado de Constantino, se verá reforzado y ampliado con la promulgación de numerosos decretos que muy pronto comenzaron a poner en apuros tanto a los practicantes del paganismo como a los considerados heréticos. Pese a que las acciones gubernamentales junto a las medidas de la propia Iglesia propiciaron el cierre de un creciente número de templos y la clausura de numerosos cultos e instituciones educativas, ciertas prácticas y pervivencias del mundo clásico perduraron a través del tiempo y siguieron manifestándose en periodos sorprendentemente tardíos. Ofreceremos aquí un caso en concreto, el del colaborador del emperador Procopio Antemio, Mesio Febo Severo, cónsul en el año 470 pese a su abierta condición de filósofo y pagano. With the acceptance of Christianity as official religion of the Empire, the process of hostil...