The nature of the ban on arms within Rome\'s pomeri

[Sean Manning]

But they are still arms which had to be brought inside the city, and maybe stored before distribution.

They were trophies won by individuals in single combat during battle, and proudly nailed above the doors of the victor's home for all to see. I doubt they were in any condition to be reused after the weather had done its business with them for a few years.

There are actually several examples of rebels using dedicated arms (which were often put up under a roof, at least in the Greek world). The one in where the Gracchans armed themselves with spoils around Fulvius' house is one (Plutarch Gaius Gracchus 15.1 ... but he says they had been taken only 3 years before), another is where the Thebans who rebelled against the Spartans quickly took arms from the colonnades (Xenophon Hellenica 5.4.8 ... Edit:The automatic happy-face rendering turns all my citations into smilies).

The life of G. Gracchus explicitly mentions games in the Forum Romanum, because Gracchus had his workers tear down some private bleachers so everyone would have an equal chance to see (12.3-4). I'm not sure if the "large styluses" (μεγάλοις γραφείοις Plutarch GG 13.3-4), since Appian mentions a dagger (Bellum Civile 25), and that looks like a way to get around a statute or custom against carrying weapons for the purpose of assault ("see officer, its just a pen for ... writing ... things ... on really hard wax").

I've learned a lot from this thread; the boundary and nature of the pomerium might make a good subject for an article in a few years. So would laws and customs on carrying arms in the Greek and the Roman worlds.