Amacellum (pl.:macella;Greek:μάκελλον,makellon) is anancient Roman indoormarket building that sold mostly provisions (especially meat and fish).[1] The building normally sat alongside the forum and basilica, providing a place in which a market could be held.[2] Eachmacellum sold different kinds of produce, depending on local availability, but it was not uncommon to import these comestibles, especially at ports likePompeii.
Themacellum was a food market, particularly for meat, fish anddelicatessen.Plautus mentioned such amacellum in the second half of the 3rd century BC. Themacellum was modeled after theagora ofGreek andHellenistic cities, except that there was nowholesale trade. The lastmacella were still in operation inConstantinople in the sixth century AD.
Amacellum is a fairly easy building to identify from its design. Amacellum provides shops arranged around a courtyard which contains a centraltholos. The tholos is a round structure, usually built upon a couple of steps (a podium), with a ring of columns supporting adomed roof. Amacellum is usually square in shape. The central courtyard of themacellum is surrounded bytabernae, shops, all of the same size. It was also possible to extend themacellum upwards to include upper stories. Entrance to themacellum was either through central gates on each of the four sides or through some of the tabernae themselves. It appears that the tabernae set aside forbutchers (carnificēs) were together in one area of themacellum where they were provided with marble counters, presumably to keep the meat cooler, and drains for the removal of water and fluid waste.
It has been suggested that the central tholos, also well provided with water and drains, was where fish was sold (due to excavated fish skeletons), although other uses for the central tholos have been suggested, such as the place whereofficial weights and measures were held for reference or as shrines to the gods of the market place (due to excavated coins). Somemacella had a water fountain or water feature in the centre of their courtyard instead of a tholos structure. It is the presence of this central water feature which seems to denote a building amacellum.
Macellum Liviae ("market of Livia") was a shopping complex built byAugustus in the name of his wifeLivia, built on theEsquiline Hill in Rome.
TheMacellum Magnum was a market building located on theCaelian Hill in Rome.[3] The complex was built and dedicated by the emperorNero in AD 59 and the location of the ancient structure likely corresponded to the current location of the church ofS. Stefano Rotondo.[4]
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TheMacellum of Pozzuoli was first excavated in the 1750s, when the discovery of a statue ofSerapis led to the building being misidentified as the city'sSerapeum or Temple of Serapis. Standing columns with bands of boreholes left by marine mollusks showed that the height of the buildings had varied in relation to sea level, and made it the subject of debate inearly geology. Subsequent excavations exposed the characteristic plan of amacellum.
TheMacellum of Pompeii was a provisional market located in theForum of Pompeii. Some of the buildings have been dated to 130–120 BC. A section of the East side of themacellum is thought to be dedicated to theimperial cult. If true, this would show the important role that the emperors played in the lives of the Romans in the early 1st century. Parts of themacellum were damaged in theearthquake of 62 CE, and these damages were not repaired before theeruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in the year 79 AD.