Salus, Aedes

Temple to Salus, dedicated by C. Iunius Bubulcus Brutus in 302 B.C. (Livy 9.43.25, 10.1.9) and built atop the collis Salutaris, one of the four peaks of the *Quirinal (Varro, Ling. 5.52: aedem Salutis). Though the temple suffered from frequent lightning strikes and fires (Richardson 341), the original 4th-c. B.C. paintings by Fabius Pictor (Val. Max. 8.14.6) survived until the reign of Claudius (Pliny, NH 35.19); this suggests that the temple weathered the damage well, and may have retained an Archaic appearance, with proportions and decoration suitable to its late 4th-c. dedication, through the Augustan period. As with the other major temples of the Quirinal, no architectural remains survive and the temple’s location is debated. The place name vicus Salutis is known from an inscription dating to 33 B.C. found beneath S. Maria Maddelena which names the neighborhood (VI]CI SALV[TIS: CIL VI 31270; *Vicus Salutis; *Compitum: Vicus Salutis). Its findspot is in close proximity to the *Porta Salutaris (c. 150 m distant); together, the place names suggest that the temple, the aedes Salutis, stood nearby in the E section of the Palazzo del Quirinale, a locale well within the bounds of the collis Salutaris (Coarelli). Literary evidence supports and refines this location; Orosius (4.4.1), when describing a lightning strike of 275 B.C., relates that the temple stood close to the city wall. The 4th-c. A.D. Regionary Catalogues list the temple in conjunction with the Temple of Serapis (templum Salutis et Serapis), which recent scholarship places in the area of San Silvestro al Quirinal (Santangeli Valenzani). While not pinpointing an exact site, these factors isolate an area of its probable location: beneath the Palazzo del Quirinale, near the edge of the hill, close to the Servian Wall (*Muri: Quirinalis; contra, Richardson, Ziolkowski). Such a site would be quite visible from the *Campus Martius, and would garner the temple a magnificent vista overlooking the expanding Augustan city below and the rising horti on the opposite peak of the *Collis Hortulorum (*Horti Luculli).