ABSTRACT
The Praefectura Urbana was an essential body of the Roman administrative system that incorporated thousands of officials, slaves and military staff spreading to every corner of Rome in different directions from the early Empire to Late Antiquity. The purpose of this chapter is to review the sources related to the magistracy of the prefect of the city in order to understand the impact of this magistrate on the development of the city administration. We will examine the sources that mention the functioning of this body of government, the spatial implementation of the Praefectura Urbana and its subaltern offices, the changes in the management of urban policies and the bodies in charge of these tasks, the acquisition of legal responsibilities by the Praefectus Urbi, the functioning of the judicial system, and the evolution of the spaces under the authority of the prefects. In recent decades, several scholars have attempted to locate the headquarters and dependencies of this institution inside the urban fabric of Rome. This contribution aims to further the dissection of the topography of the city by discussing the different problems involved in the location of the physical spaces related to the Praefectura Urbana through the examination of several kinds of sources including ancient literature, epigraphy, historical cartography and, of course, the archaeological record.
