Golden Milestone

Location	Regione VIII Forum Romanum
Built in	Inauguration 20 BC
Built by/for	Emperor Augustus
Type of structure	Milestone with gilded bronze finishing
Related	Augustus
Milliarium Aureum

This article covers the Forum of the Republican and Imperial periods

The Milliarium Aureum (Classical Latin: [miːllɪˈaːrɪʊm ˈawrɛʊm], Golden Milestone; Italian: Miliario Aureo) was a monument, probably of marble or gilded bronze, erected by the Emperor Caesar Augustus near the Temple of Saturn in the central Forum of Ancient Rome. All roads were considered to begin at this monument and all distances in the Roman Empire were measured relative to it. On it perhaps were listed all the major cities in the empire and distances to them, though the monument's precise location and inscription remain matters of debate among historians.

According to Schaff, the phrase "" is a reference to the Milliarium Aureum - the specific point to which all roads were said to lead. Today, a marble structure speculated to be the base of the milestone is present in the Roman Forum.

Augustus, as curator viarum, erected the monument in 20 BC. It probably received the name Milliarium Aureum soon after its inauguration. It symbolized the starting point of the Roman road system to the rest of Italy and to all the imperial possessions.

The plan of the monument is among those missing from the recovered fragments of the Forma Urbis. The remaining fragments for this area of the Roman Forum are all in the so-called slab V-11, Stanford University #19 (Temple of Saturn with the frontal section and staircase, but the Rostra section is missing, Temple of Concordia, and Temple of the Deified Vespasian). Information from ancient authors is also very scarce, so there are many problems of interpretation concerning the exact nature of the Milliarium Aureum.

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