Macellum Cosiniorum
About
Two brothers, Lucius and Gaius Cosinius, paid 30,000 sesterces of their own money to give Cuicul this market under Antoninus Pius, and an inscribed measuring table for grain still sits where merchants once checked their weights. Eighteen shops ringed a colonnaded courtyard whose centerpiece was a circular tholos, with stone counters carved with animal heads and garlands fronting each stall. It was a private benefaction on a civic scale, the kind of gift that let a provincial family's name outlast the empire itself. The building postdates Trajan's reign by a full generation and belongs squarely to the city's mid-2nd-century boom.
What happened here
Trade is regulated and everyone is aware of it. Weights and measures are checked against the standards kept by the aediles, and short measure gets you fined and named. Stalls are arranged by trade, with the fish and meat kept to one side and downwind where the town has any choice. Prices swing with the shipping season and are shouted rather than displayed. Much of the meat on sale has come from a sacrifice, so the religious calendar shows up in the supply. Slaves buying for a household argue harder than their owners would. The upper floors, where there are any, are offices and storage let by the town for rent. It opens at dawn and the good produce is gone by mid-morning.
Sources
Nearby
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