La ‘sacralizzazione’ della difesa urbana: il caso delle mura aureliane

It is a well-known phenomenon that the urban defence, since the fifth century, in the West and in the East, acquires Christian codes, with the value of a new identity and protective evocation. In Rome, the of “sacralization” of the Aurelian Walls emerges through various outcomes: the affixing of explicit signs on the gates, the renaming of these with Saints names and also the construction of churches. In particular, this paper focuses on these buildings near the walls, mainly datable in the 6th-7th century, and it also develops the hypothesis that there were some connections between these churches and oratories with the military positions for the custodia murorum.