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Compitum
In 1888, work in the cellar of a building on Via di San Martino ai Monti, which follows the ancient Clivus Suburanus on the last part of the slope rising towards the Esquiline Gate, uncovered a marble altar. It was set on a high podium with a platform of tufa blocks in front, reached by steps at the sides. The marble altar, probably the base of a statue that has since been lost, was dedicated to Mercury, the patron deity of commerce, and was erected by the emperor Augustus. The inscription on the marble base reads:
"IMP CAES DIVI F AUGUST PONTIF MAXIMUS COS XI TRIBVNICIA POTEST XIIII E STIPE QUAM POPULUS ROMANUS K IANUARIIS APSENTI EI CONTULIT IULLO ANTONIO AFRICANO FABIO COS MERCUSRIO SACRUM"
"The emperor Caesar Augustus, son of the deified Julius, pontifex maximus, consul for the eleventh time, holding tribunician power for the fourteenth time, dedicated this monument with the money that the Roman people gave on January 1, in his absence, during the consulate of Iullus Antonius and Fabius Africanus. Consecrated to Mercury".
The public offices held by the emperor Augustus allow us to date the dedication of the altar to 10 BC, in the seventeenth year of his reign.
The presence of the altar indicates that this was an important point on the city road network: its dedication in early January is connected to the Compitalia, a very ancient traditional Roman festival revived by Augustus. Compita (compitum in the singular) were crossroads; from the early centuries of Rome’s existence, altars were often consecrated here dedicated to the Lares compitales, the gods who protected those passing along the streets. Along country roads, shrines and altars marked and protected the boundaries between fields; inside the city they sometimes marked the boundary between different districts, and were the focus of ceremonies officiated by the Magistri Vici, magistrates in charge of maintenance and security in the city.
