ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to trace and map these administrative functions, actions, and spaces, based on existing Roman sources. Instead of singular buildings and places, it will focus on locations and connections in order to reveal their functional interdependencies. Within the newer studies on space and spatiality as a historical determinant, an often-repeated claim is that physical spaces are reflections of the social framework of the community, a kind of petrified illustration of the values and norms of the society. However, within the study of the spaces of administration and law, this claim is immediately challenged. In the standard works on space, the importance and value of a given feature is observable in the centrality, visibility, and expense apparent in the spaces devoted to it. Thus, the centrality of religion or certain religious cults may be divined in the size and prominence of the place of worship. Given that administration and the law are among the most important features of Roman civic culture and its prime legacies, the spaces devoted to them are disappointing: open spaces, transportable furniture, little or no dedicated room for them. What there is can mainly be described as secondary uses of religious buildings such as temples or transient loci in open spaces such as marketplaces and so forth. In short, what we are missing are buildings that we can say are the equivalent of a modern administrative office, a court building, or an archive. However, what we do have are many spaces and buildings that have some administrative functions linked to them and which have been given almost modern functions in literature, such as the Aerarium and Tabularium.
