Il muro nel mito di fondazione di Roma e delle città antiche

The idea of wall, as well as that of door, defines the concept of the city giving it its urban status; as a matter of fact the city is alive from the moment of definition of its entries and limits. These entries and limits are protected by the juridical and religious sacredness, proved by lexical memory and archaeological evidences. The foundation of a city in the Italic society in general and in the history of ancient Rome in particular has always been marked by rituals that sacredly identified its existence, while circumscribing the design of an ager effatus. Only through the identification of the “internal” could the ancients materialize and separate order from chaos, civilization from barbarism, the profane from the sacred and let the citizen participate in every daily act in the divine.