The Problem of the Border between Italy, Noricum, and Pannonia

Abstract

The boundary stone between the territories of Aquileia and Emona, discovered near Bevke to the southwest of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and most probably dated to the period of Augustus, has confirmed the previously argued hypothesis that Emona belonged to Italy from the very beginning of its existence as a colonia Iulia. Two important arguments speak in favour of an early dating of the boundary stone. It is made of Aurisina limestone, quarried in the hinterland of Tergeste, from which only the earliest inscribed monuments in the Nauportus and Emona regions were manufactured, while the letters closely resemble those of the early inscriptions. Pliny’s location of Emona in Pannonia should be taken as mere geographical data and should not be understood in terms of Roman administration.