milliarium

The Roman milestone, a stone column, such as were set up at intervals of a thousand (mille) passus=5000 Roman feet, on the military roads, partly during the last years of the Republic, and regularly since Augustus. They gave in numbers, usually preceded by M.P. (milia passuum), the distance from the place from which the measurement was made, besides its name and those of the persons who had constructed the road or erected the milestone, and of the emperor in whose reign the road had been made. A great number of these milestones in every part of the Roman Empire has been preserved, and also the base of the central column of the gilded one (milliarium aureum) erected by Augustus in the Forum near the temple of Saturn, and said to have been regarded as the centre of the Empire; but this cannot be taken literally, as the distances were really measured from the city gates (Macer , Dig. l. 16, 154). It is probable that each of the chief cities of the Empire had its own milliarium.