On Walls

"Remus contemptuously jumped over the newly raised walls and was forthwith killed by the enraged Romulus, who exclaimed, ‘So shall it be henceforth with every one who leaps over my walls.’"

This is the founding fratricide of Rome, recounted by Livy in a bizarrely casual manner. Yet strange though it is, it seems we are meant to understand the logic of this episode without further elaboration, for Livy provides none. How are we to make sense of this?

The dead body of Remus, by William Kentridge; "sketch" for his project Triumphs and Laments.

Only one thing is immediately clear—the murder is somehow connected to walls. So, here's a bit of context. Whenever a Roman city was founded, the founder (in this case Romulus) would ritually establish its boundary, called the pomerium. Specifically, it would be plowed into the ground, counter-clockwise, using an ox and a white cow. The ox always walked outside the boundary, to the right; the cow, on the inside. Settlers of the new town would follow behind the plow and cast all the plowed-up dirt inside the boundary, such that none of it would fall outside the city.   

This pomerium traced the site of the future wall. Ritual plowing served to sanctify the boundary and everything inside it; it created a holy perimeter, and to cross it—to cross any Roman wall—bore the penalty of death. Gates, however, were an exception: they would be passed through daily, and could not be held inviolable. Therefore wherever a gate was to be located, the founder would lift up the plow and carry it over the ground, leaving a strip of unbroken earth.

In this way, Romans inscribed themselves into the landscape. Once the inscription had been made, however, it had to be upheld. This was the function of the god Terminus, the keeper of boundaries. The word terminus literally meant boundary-stone, of the type used both to delimit cities and to separate landowners' properties; to violate the integrity of a terminus also bore the death penalty. The logic of Remus's death becomes clear.

Three Roman termini in Beaucaire, France. 

So forbidden was the moving of a terminus that not even the Senate could allow it. Predictably, this taboo led to "zoning issues" as the city expanded past its old boundaries. For instance: the most important temple in ancient Rome—the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus—was built in 509 BC on the Capitoline Hill. But the Capitoline had once been at Rome's extremity—and thus, deep in antiquity, a boundary stone had been laid at that spot. Since removing the terminus was impossible, the temple had to be built around it. As Ovid wrote,

         Terminus remained in the shrine where he was found, and shares the temple with great Jupiter. Even now there’s a small hole in the temple roof, so he can see nothing above him but stars.

The hole in the roof tells us one thing more: Terminus' boundaries were not confined to the land; they extended upward into the sky. Roman walls—the largest boundary-stones of all—were traced in the heavens as on earth.

Of course, cities no longer have walls. Walls are no longer functional entities: they do not secure borders, either of cities or states. Crossing them, where they still exist, is not a meaningful gesture, because it isn't difficult—not even in war. Most cities have shed their walls for this reason, or else have spilled out far beyond them. 

Needless to say, the holy quality of walls as boundaries has correspondingly vanished. Instead, in the modern era, walls have served as footprints for something else: wide boulevards. To knock down walls and pave the area they covered allowed many cities to accommodate modern traffic flow (the highest principle of modern city planning)—Cologne, for instance.

Map of Cologne; the street charting the course of the former wall is clearly visible.

In our cities, then, walls have become streets. And this is altogether fitting, for if we are to think of urban barriers, then there is no better modern example than the street: a wall of traffic, dangerous to cross, passage over which is overseen by higher powers, and whose law is central to the cohesion of the town. This is especially true in Germany, where to cross the street against the lights is sure to win you a scowl. (Even when there are simply no cars at all, people will just stand there, waiting for the green.) Less true in Italy, where red lights are more like suggestions. Nevertheless, the street—still more, the train track—has become the new sacred partition of the city.

The difference is that, rather than unifying the town with an encircling gesture, busy streets divide it, especially from a pedestrian view. Of course, this vehicular pragmatics of city planning can be innocuous, even helpful. Yet when it collides with older ideas of the town, its results range from bemusing to damaging. 

A quick example. Today, the temple of Jupiter and the terminus within it are gone. Instead, the Capitoline Hill is home to three building complexes. The oldest is a medieval church, Santa Maria in Aracoeli ("the altar of the sky"). To its right is the Piazza Campidoglio, a triumph of Renaissance urban design done by Michelangelo, surrounded by three palaces; to its left is the Altar of the Fatherland, the 19th-century monument to Italian unification (which was made by, essentially, blowing up the north face of the hill, and replacing it with marble). These three sites sit on the hilltop, but each is united with the city below by a monumental staircase. Michelangelo's presents the best example: his piazza design (see below) encloses a sort of barely-contained, reverberating energy, which flows down his wide steps into the heart of the city. 

Or rather it would, were it not for the fact that now all three staircases have been cut off by the wall of traffic below in Piazza Venezia. One of the largest transit hubs in the city, Piazza Venezia has become a swarm of busses, scooters, and cars with no discernible order, and few crosswalks distributed at random; it is directly into this mess that, now, all of these steps empty their contents. The end result is this: if you descend from the Capitoline Hill, you must immediately turn right or left at the bottom; no matter what staircase you use, you will be unable to continue in the direction of the steps' cascade without being run over. Thus, though the Altar of the Fatherland's massive equestrian statue seems about to gallop off down Via Nazionale, you will be doing nothing of the sort.

Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio, looking down the steps into the city.

 

Two images of the Capitoline Hill. The first, an overview, showing all three staircases. The second, the Altar of the Fatherland; King Victor Emanuel riding away.

Impediments: looking down from the steps from the Altar (Victor Emanuel's viewpoint).

A final point: while streets create undeniable barriers, there is another, more hidden sort of wall in the modern metropolis: the ticket-booth. Never were Europe's castles more equipped to deny entry than they are now, when it is a matter of cash. The walls of admittance fees essentially cut pieces out of the city, removing them from any continuous urban fabric and placing them in another dimension; you cannot flow into or through them unless you are able to pay. By this method, a city's monuments become isolated, and cease to be part of the city at all—they belong, instead, to the tourists.