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And here we come to the heart of the matter: Frontino cites an article from an old law regarding pollution of the water in the fountains: "Ne quis aquam oletato dolo maio, ubi publice saliet. Si quis oletarit, sestertiorum decem milium multa esto" which means: "No one is seriously to dirty (oletato) the water of the public fountains. If anyone dirties the waters of the fountains, (oletarit) he shall be fined ten thousand sesterces".
The article quoted by Frontino was, even in his day, written in somewhat antiquated Latin, to the extent that, for the sake of clarity, he immediately explained the main verb: " Oletato videtur esse olidam facito", i.e. "Oletare [= dirty] meaning "to make dirty".
Now, given that we are certain the antiquated oletare derives from olea, oleum (= olive, oil), from which we also get oletus, olidus (= dirty, polluted), in my judgment "Fons olei" is no other than the common derivation from an expression whose meaning had been forgotten: Fons olidus or Fons oletus. So its original meaning was simply "the fountain fed by polluted water" – in the final analysis, therefore, "the fountain with undrinkable water", just as the Aqua Alsietina provided fountain water that was not suitable for drinking.
In conclusion, the fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, which Augustus supplied with the polluted Aqua Alsietina, was known in the area as "the polluted fountain" – that is the "Fons oletus" – and the name thus transferred was later mistakenly interpreted and perpetuated. The original meaning was no longer understood and, over time, in the way that people have of altering words or expressions that are not clear to them, the name eventually became "Fons olei". Christian hagiography (starting, perhaps, with Saint Jerome and Paulus Orosius) appropriated the old pagan idea of oil gushing from the ground somewhere along the banks of the Tiber (Dio Cassius) and, in giving the story a Christian twist, located the event near the Taberna Meritoria, where the "Fons olei" already existed – and on which, according to tradition, the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere was built – stating that it was on the very night of Christ’s birth that "oil spurted forth" on that exact spot.
So, for now at least, there’s no petroleum!
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