A Divine Inspiration for Border Studies; Conceptually Excavating the Polydivine Roman Border Landscape of Terminus, Janus, Mercurius, Trivia and Pluto

Abstract

What can we learn from the Romans regarding the understanding of borders? For various contemporary populist politicians, Roman history teaches us the need for harsh and strict borders, to prevent the invasion of “barbarians” and the “fall” of the European Union. To assess their claim, we trace back the Romans’ own source of inspiration for their territoriality and border ideology: the Roman border gods. Using this conceptual archaeological lens we critically counter the populist reductionism and selective history shopping, and explore the potential of the diverse Roman gods to further enrich the contemporary border studies academic debate. We conceptually excavate the polydivine dialogue among significant Roman border-related gods: Terminus, whose representation of border fixity inspires the dominant politicized debate on ultra-securitised borders, along with Janus, Mercury, Trivia, and Pluto, each offering diverse perspectives on borders. Diving into the divine inspiration of the Roman border gods, it becomes evident that we can learn a lot from the Romans indeed – and far more than the misleading and selective interpretations presented by populist politicians.