Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Macellum

（ὀψοπωλία, ὀψοπωλεῖον, and κρεοπωλεῖον). A market for provisions of all kinds— meat, fish, poultry, fruit, etc. At Athens, the separate kinds of wares were sold in the divisions of the market-place, called κύκλοι. The opening of a sale was announced by the ringing of a bell. See Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, ch. x., and the article Agora.

At Rome, there were originally separate markets for the sale of each kind of food, thus the Forum Boarium for meat, Olitorium for vegetables, Piscatorium for fish, etc., but in B.C. 179 a great Macellum, or general market, was built north of the Forum Romanum ( Fest. s. v. macellum), and afterwards, a number of other macella arose, such as the Macellum Augusti mentioned on a coin of Nero (Eckhel, vi. 273), and the Macellum Livianum near the Porta Esquilina. The market-men were called macellarii (Iul. 26).