6 Pes Dexter Superstition and the State in the Shaping of Shopfronts and StreetActivitv in the Roman World* Steven I. R. Ellis To move through a Roman city, whether along its streetsfrom one neighbour- hood to the next, or acrossthe street from one building to another, brought the Roman urbanite into a kaleidoscopic array of signs and spacesthat served to enable,interrupt, or block pedestrian passage.'The most powerful of these were also the most common: the doorway and its threshold. The Roman urban streetscape was dominated as much by doorways as by the buildings that each represented.When lames Packer categorized Roman street-side doorways, he arrived at two different types: those that opened onto a shop, and those that did not.2 Even if no precise number of shops will likely be recovered for Ostia or Pompeii, primarily because of difficulties in identification and definition, around 800 can be estimated for the excavatedarea alone at Ostia and around 600 for Pompeii. These figures should indicate the ubiquity of shopfront doorways in the Roman streetscape.3 Although variations exist among the * The field research for thischapter was carried out thanks to thekind permission ofPietro GiovanniGuzzo (Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei) and Anna Galina Zevi (Soprinten- denza per i Beni Archeologici di Ostia). I thank, especially, Kyle Egerer (my research assistant) who energetically cleared, cleaned, and recorded all of the Ostian thresholds that were buried under modern soil and vegetation. Generous financial support for this research was granted initially by the Department of Classical Studies at the Universityof Michigan,and more recently by the Department of Classics at the Universityof Cincinnati.My appreciation is extended to the audience members who offeredinsightfi.rl and corrective feedback on the presented version of this paperat the RomanArchaeology Conference in Ann Arbor, 2009. ' See Hartnett, in this volume,on blockages to pedestrian movement. 2 Packer (lg7l:21). ' Delaine (2005: 33) counts over 800 shops in the excavated area of Ostia, which she compares only to Rome based on the Severan marbleplan. Gassner ( 1986: p. v) countsprecisely 577 shops in the excavated area of Pompeii.