| DECREE
OF THE SENATE ON THE MOUNTAIN CANTON ( 2nd-1st century BC ) |
( Johnson, Coleman-Norton & Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes, Austin, 1961, p. 33, n. 37 ). |
| The
editors of this inscribed pillar, found in a cemetery near the Esquiline
Hill in Rome, Italy, in 1875, generally consider that its subject matter
is part of a senatorial resolution containing provisions about safeguarding
from desecration a burial place in the vicinity. Of the five cantons
with fixed boundaries identified in or outside Rome of the republican
period the Mountain Canton (Pagus Montanus) was that community
outside the Esquiline Gate and adjacent to the Esquiline Hill, now the
heights of Santa Maria Maggiore within the urban limits of the modern
City. |
ENGLISH TRANSLATION. |
| . . .
and these men shall provide and shall guard the place at the direction
of the plebeian aediles, whoever they may be. There shall be made in
these places and areas neither burning sites nor fireplaces for burning ;
and the person who holds these places, bought or rented from the Mountain
Canton, shall not make a dungheap or throw earth within these places ;
and that, if he makes a dungheap in these places or throws earth onto
these places, against . . . shall be . . . with
. . . sesterces . . . a laying on of hand and a
seizure of pledge . . . |