As F. states in the preface, since the 1990s Europe has increasingly been a border-free area. With the Schengen Agreement 26 European countries decided to open their internal borders to the free and unrestricted movement of people. This was to be made possible in accordance with common rules for controlling external borders and fighting crime by strengthening the common judicial system and police cooperation. This almost unrestricted mobility changed in many European states in 2015, when fences and walls were erected again, and there were increased border controls to prevent unauthorised migration. In recent years it has been difficult for individuals to travel to other countries, and in some cases even to leave their own city, when the pandemic restricted all mobility. Unhindered movement has gone from being the short-term norm to being a tenuous achievement once again. In this book, which focuses on borders, thresholds, gates and entrances, F. describes a topic that does not lose its relevance.
The volume is primarily about the city gate and the city entrance in the Roman empire, limited in time from the Augustan era to the third century ce. F. has chosen a multi-perspective but exemplary approach. It is important for her to present the subject as closely as possible to everyday life. It soon becomes apparent that F. is by no means aiming for a comprehensive presentation of individual gates, but rather deliberately weaves suitable examples of gate buildings into the question. She thus refers to individual examples of city gates, attempting to cover a broad topographical framework. The exemplary inclusion of local and regional historical features serves as a starting point for a multi-perspective historiography as well as for a dynamic development. The study consists of fifteen chapters including the introduction, divided into five parts. The book starts with a personal preface by F.; it is a revised version of her Habilitation thesis, which was accepted in June 2021 by the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen.
The introduction discusses methodological premises and provides an overview of the sources. City gates in the Roman imperial period are usually defined as passages in defence walls, also as architecturally designed arches; more rarely, they are understood as monumental gate buildings with an inner courtyard. Towers occur, but do not have to be present. City gates are always connected to a street, while arched monuments are not to be considered city gates. This section also lists the questions that run through the book. What are the requirements to enter a city?
Part 1, ‘Das Stadttor in den Kulturen des Mittelmeerraums’, briefly discusses the development of Roman defensive architecture up to the imperial period. It also considers who commissioned and ultimately financed the construction of the walls or gates. But what was the reason for building city walls and gates during the Roman imperial period, where walls and gates would not have been necessary due to the state of security? This security aspect runs like a red thread through the book, since there were repeated threats to individual cities at certain times. Robbers, wild animals and external enemies were always a real threat. Due to an increased number of people, supra-regional trade and free travel, a control system became necessary, which was easier to implement by making the border visible like a city gate.
This aspect is dealt with in Part 2, ‘Kontrollmodalitäten am Stadteingang’, where the city gate is presented as a transit area that is important in terms of security policy and economy. The topic of freedom of travel and control mechanisms at the city entrance is discussed in a somewhat over-detailed manner, since the procedure was apparently not uniformly regulated during the Roman imperial period, and the conclusions remain open in the end. In this case, an architectural evaluation of the gates would have been helpful, since gate chambers and towers imply activities of guards as well as locking mechanisms at the gate, which reflect the inhabitants’ need for security.
Part 3, ‘Verkehrs- und Kommunikationswege am Stadteingang’, focuses on the traffic volume at the Roman city gates. For this assessment the inner-city traffic regulation is decisive, which, however, could not be assessed uniformly. Nevertheless, the city gate can be regarded as a landmark, a point of orientation in the city for foreign arrivals and also for locals.
Part 4 is focused on the semantics of the city gate, ‘Die Semantik des Stadttors’. The decisive point is that a gate is a liminal place, a threshold situation, a transition across a defined boundary, which may be accompanied by cultic and ritual practices.
Part 5, ‘Bilanz und Ausblick’, summarises once again the functions of the imperial city gate as a connecting point, checkpoint and symbol of urbanitas, dignitas and Romanitas and it ends with a brief transition to the influence of Roman city gates up to modern times.
Cultural-historical research has not yet focused on city gates, which have so far been regarded as part of the fortification system and mostly judged according to poliorketic criteria. A few representative gates are known from early civilisations. These include the Lion Gate in Mycenae or the gate of Mycenaean Tiryns, which is particularly remarkable in terms of fortification. During the early Greek period gates in fortifications were considered particularly worthy of protection against external attackers. The Western Gate at Eretria from the sixth century bce was the first gate to be built in a representative manner in the Archaic period and was extended to a larger size. Subsequently, the first monumental gates in Greece and Asia Minor were built in the course of the founding of new cities, such as Messene under Epaminondas and Halicarnassus under Mausolos in the fourth century bce. For the first time, gates were erected and evaluated in a representative manner beyond their circumstances. This means that the border was no longer merely defended, but also architecturally designed. During the republican period gates were decorated architecturally more often, which increased the importance of the buildings, so that the Roman arched gate, largely detached from fortification requirements, prevailed in the imperial period. F. defines city gates as passages on defence walls and free-standing arched gates on arterial roads that, according to their function, mark the entrance and exit of a city. They were not necessarily part of the city wall, but were part of the street system.
As meticulously as F. presents traffic and security factors at the entrance to the city, the semantics of the city gate remain diverse for the Roman imperial period, seen not only as a threshold between inside and outside, but also as a manifestation of power and wealth, as an expression of urbanitas and quality of life or as a proof of belonging to the empire. Thus, unlockable arched monuments at the entrance to the imperial city are seen as the epitome of peace and security (precisely because they could not be locked).
F. writes in the introduction that the publication should be understood as a contribution to the everyday and cultural history of the city from the imperial era, and in this she has certainly succeeded. For example, the volume shows that there were differences within the Roman empire as to the circumstances or rituals that had to be observed when entering the city. The different regional traditions also provide evidence of a heterogeneous urban condition. The security situation and customs procedures were not uniformly regulated. But the city gate remained as a place of security, of communication, border, representation, landmark, symbolic or commemorative place for everyone. The book is written in a dynamic and richly illustrated manner, and the excellent compilation of literary sources gives a good impression of what happened at the city gate. Not least, because F. addresses current topics such as freedom to travel, questions of migration, borders and mobility, which were obviously also important for the population in the Roman empire, readers are touched by their relevance.
The book will be a standard work on the cultural and everyday history of the gate for the next few decades and an important contribution to the history of the city in the Roman empire.
