Septizodium

Ancient and medieval sources describe its purpose as being to impress Severus' fellow north Africans as they entered the city, as it was located at the place where the Via Appia passes the Palatine and leads east towards the Forum Romanum.

[4] Ammianus Marcellinus refers to the building in an ambiguous passage: "The plebs...had come together at the Septemzodium, a popular place, where Marcus Aurelius built a Nymphaeum in a rather ostentatious style.

In August 1241, after the death of Pope Gregory IX, the 11 cardinals who were able to get into Rome through the lines of Emperor Frederick II's army came together in the ramshackle palace of the Septizodium.

There was a frightful heat and the rain leaked through the roof of the chamber of the cardinals, mingled with the urine of Matteo Rosso Orsini's guards on the rooftiles.

The stones obtained were used for the basement of the Flaminio Obelisk of Piazza del Popolo, the restoration of the Column of Marcus Aurelius, the pope's tomb in St. Mary Major and other structures.