The Temple of Jupiter Stator was first
vowed, according to ancient tradition, by Romulus after a battle with the
Sabines. The city of Rome was hardly more than a settlement on the Palatine
Hill, and the battle was taking place in the valley, in the Forum Romanum.
The Romans were forced to retreat up hill by the Via Sacra, but at the
Porta Mugonia they managed to regroup and hold their ground against the
Sabines, who were eventually defeated.
Romulus consecrated a templum to Jupiter
Stator, "The Stayer", at the spot, just outside the Porta Mugonia.
The sanctuary was not an aedes, more likely it was an altar enclosed by a
low wall or fence.
In 294 BCE Marcus Atilius Reguilus made a similar
vow in a similar situation, when the Romans were losing a battle against the
Samnites, but then miraculously turned around, regrouped and held their ground
against the enemy. Afterwards he had an aedes, a temple building,
constructed on the site of the archaic altar.
On November 8, 63 BCE consul M. Tullius
Cicero convened the senate to a meeting in the Temple of Jupiter Stator,
where he held his famous first oration against Catiline, denouncing an attack
on the state, which he then ruthlessly suppressed.
The location of the Temple of Jupiter Stator is not
known with absolute certainty. The written sources give some hints, such as
near or just outside the Porta Mugonia (but it is not known where that was), on
the higher end of the Via Sacra or just on the Palatine.
There is a fair amount of consensus on a location just
besides the Arch of Titus on the N. slope of the Palatine
Hill. When a medieval tower was demolished in 1827, the ruins of an ancient
building appeared, and these remains are frequently identified as the
foundations of the Temple of Jupiter Stator.
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