<p>Open space on the SE slopes of the *Capitol, which functioned as a memorial against tyranny. It was an area kept free from construction and its name commemorated the levelling of the house of a would-be tyrant of the 5th c. B.C., Spurius Maelius (e.g., Varro, <i>Ling.</i> 5.157: <i>a&lt;e&gt;quata Meli domus</i>, ‘the levelled house of Melius’). It was a place to buy sacrificial animals (Cic., <i>Div</i>. 2.39), and it still existed in the Augustan period (Dion. Hal., <i>Ant. Rom.</i> 12.4.6). It stood on the lower slopes of the Capitol by the *Vicus Iugarius (Livy 24.47.15), below the retaining walls of the *Area Capitolina (Livy 38.28.3). Thus Pisani Sartorio puts it N of the *Forum Bovarium, Coarelli more specifically between the Area Sacra di S. Omobono and Piazza della Consolazione. It only occupied the former site of a single house, so it cannot have been large.</p>