Capitolium Vetus

The most ancient shrine in Rome dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, the Capitolium Vetus was located on the *Quirinal at the top of a steep street leading from the Temple of *Flora (Varro, Ling. 5.158: versus Capitolium Vetus). Varro explicitly notes that the Capitolium Vetus was older than the Temple of *Iuppiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus. No archaeological remains of the structure survive, but Varro’s use of ‘sacellum’ implies that the Capitolium Vetus was of modest dimensions, perhaps no more than an open area with altars (Coarelli; contra, Ziolkowski 36-38, who argues, with little success, that the Capitolium Vetus was an independent peak of the Quirinal). Traditionally, the Capitolium Vetus had been located near the Palazzo Barberini based upon two inscriptions found there in the 17th c. (CIL I2 727-28=VI 30926-27=ILS 33-34=ILLRP 176-77). Set up by the city’s Asian allies sometime after the Mithridatic Wars, these honorific tablets were thought to mirror similar ones erected on the *Capitol (ILLRP 178-80). However, recent scholarship has plausibly questioned the association of these inscriptions with the Capitolium Vetus; the plaques may have belonged to a larger group of bilingual inscriptions originally displayed on the Capitoline, then dispersed throughout the city after the fire of 83 B.C. (Degrassi, ILLRP 174-81; linking them to the Temple of *Salus, Manca di Mores 330, and Ziolkowski 144-48; with the Temple of *Quirinus, Coarelli 187). In the absence of archaeological remains and dependable epigraphic evidence, the topographic clues provided in textual sources become the primary basis for locating the shrine. The 4th-c. A.D. Regionary Catalogues list the Capitolium Vetus in Regio VI: Alta Semita after the temples of Salus, Serapis, and Flora and before the Baths of Constantine; this suggests that the sacellum stood in the NW sector of the Quirinal, most likely on the collis Salutaris. Since the Capitolium Vetus stood uphill from the Temple of Flora (Varro, loc. cit.) with an unobstructed view between them (Mart. 5.22.4), the ancient shrine probably stood somewhere on the E side of the collis Salutaris.