PŬTĔAL, properly means the enclosure surrounding the opening of a
well, to protect persons from falling into it. It was either round
or square, and seems usually to have been of the height of three
or four feet from the ground. It was the practice in some cases to
surround a sacred place with an enclosure open at the top, and such
enclosures, from the great similarity they bore to _putealia_, were
called by this name. There were two such places in the Roman forum;
one of these was called _Puteal Libonis_ or _Scribonianum_, because
a chapel (_sacellum_) in that place had been struck by lightning,
and Scribonius Libo expiated it by proper ceremonies, and erected
a puteal around it, open at the top, to preserve the memory of the
place. The form of this puteal is preserved on several coins of the
Scribonian gens. This puteal seems to have been near the atrium of
Vesta, and was a common place of meeting for usurers. The other
puteal was in the comitium, on the left side of the senate-house, and
in it were deposited the whetstone and razor of ATTUS NAVIUS.
[Illustration: Puteal on a Coin of the Scribonia Gens. (British
Museum.)]