MILLIARIUM AUREUM
a column covered with gilt bronze, erected by Augustus in 20 B.C., when he assumed the cura viarum about Rome (Cass. Dio liv. 8). It was regarded as the point of convergence of all the great roads running out of the city (Plut. Galba 24), and on it were engraved the names of the principal cities of the empire and their distances from Rome, although these distances were reckoned from the gates in the Servian wall, not from the milliarium itself (Plin. NH iii. 66). This stood in capite romani fori (Plin. loc. cit.) and sub aede Saturni (Tac. Hist. i. 27; Suet. Otho 6), probably between the rostra and the temple of Saturn, but no trace of its foundations has been found (Richter, BRT ii. 12-13; HC 81; De Rossi, Piante icnografiche 31-32; Jord. i. 2. 245, 314). Of the monument itself two possible fragments have been found, one a part of the marble shaft, 1.42 metres long and 1.17 in diameter, with two sides left rough and traces of bronze facing (Bull. d. Inst. 1835, 78; Richter, Gesch. d. Rednerbuehne 35-37), and the other a part of a circular marble plinth decorated with palmettes (Bull. cit. 1852, 81; Thed. 133, 229; DR 374-5; RE Suppl. iv. 499, 500).