Terminus. A divinity to whom the ancients generally, and the Romans in particular, paid worship, as presiding over the boundaries of the fields. He is represented with a human face and a body terminating in the form of an inverted pyramid. On the feast days of these tutelary gods of landmarks (February 21), the inhabitants of the neighboring villages crowned their images with flowers.
On the obverse of a denarius belonging to the Calpurnia family appears the statue of a man, the upper part of whose body is clothed in a toga; but it has neither arms nor feet, on one side of which is a laurel crown, and on the other a vase without legend; but on the reverse M. PISO M.F. FRVGI.
Ursinus sees in this the symbol of Terminus; and supposes that Piso (whoever he might be) adopted it as a type for his coin, for the purpose of indicating the origin of certain religious rites performed in honor of that rural deity, as introduced by Numa, who, (according to the old writes whom Ursinus quotes) first erected a little temple (sacellum) to Terminus, on the Tarpeian hill, at Rome.
A similiar figure of the same guardian of property limits, having on it's head a radiated crown, and with a thunderbolt lying beneath, exhibits itself on a silver coin of Augustus, inscribed IMP. CAESAER.