Aequimelium
Aequimelium was the ancient name of a place on the south-eastern slope of the Capitol in Rome that was kept free from development .
According to Varro , the location was so named because “the leveled house of Maelius” (a ‹e› quata Meli domus) once stood in its place . Spurius Maelius was 439 BC Was executed because he supposedly wanted to reach for the kingdom. The somewhat younger Dionysius of Halicarnassus , who traces the name back to aequum Meli ( αἶκον Μήλιον ), "the free surface, the plane of Maelius", offers a slightly different derivation . Dionysius also reports that in his time the square, although closely surrounded by adjacent houses, was vacant.
On the occasion of the fire in Rome in 213 BC, Livy mentions BC the Aequimelium in one move with the adjoining vicus Iugarius , since both areas had burned to the ground, and specifies the situation elsewhere, where he states that the substructures of the Capitol were built above the Aequimelium . Filippo Coarelli would like to locate the square, which cannot have been larger than the area of a house, between Area sacra di Sant'Omobono and the Piazza della Consolazione near Santa Maria della Consolazione , while Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio more generally a location north of the adjoining Forum Boarium accepts.
In the time of Cicero , the aequimelium offered the opportunity to buy sacrificial animals, namely lambs, for private sacrifices.
literature
- Filippo Coarelli : La Porta Trionfale e la Via dei Trionfi. In: Dialoghi di Archeologia. Volume 2, 1968, p. 77.
- Christian Hülsen : Aequimelium . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 598.
- Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio: Aequimelium. In: Eva Margareta Steinby (Ed.): Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae . Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1993, p. 20 f.
- Samuel Ball Platner , Thomas Ashby : A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press, London 1929, p. 2 sv Aequimelium.
- Alexander G. Thein: Aequimelium. In: Elisha Ann Dumser (Ed.): Mapping Augustan Rome (= Journal of Roman Archeology . Supplement 50). Portsmouth 2002, p. 42 ( online ).
Web links
- Alexander G. Thein: Aequimelium at Digital Augustan Rome.
Remarks
- ↑ Varro, De origine linguae Latinae 5,157 : Aequimelium quod a ‹e› quata Meli domus publico, quod regnum occupare voluit is; compare also Cicero , de domo sua 101; Livy 4:16; Valerius Maximus 6,3,1.
- ^ Dionysios of Halicarnassus, antiquitates Romanae 12.4 .
- ↑ Livy 24:47.
- ↑ Livy 38:28.
- ^ Filippo Coarelli: La Porta Trionfale e la Via dei Trionfi. In: Dialoghi di Archeologia. Volume 2, 1968, p. 77.
- ^ Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio: Aequimelium. In: Eva Margareta Steinby (Ed.): Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. Volume 1. Quasar, Rome 1993, p. 20 f.
- ↑ Cicero, de divinatione 2,39.