User:Cynwolfe/Jupiter Stator notes

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Bronze statue of Jupiter from 1st-century Gaul, possibly Stator[1]

In ancient Roman religion, Jupiter Stator, less often as Jove Stator, was a cult manifestation of Jupiter as "the Stayer",[2] that is, "preserver and supporter" of the Roman state.[3] Stator also embodied the divine force that made soldiers hold their position in battle.[4]

Temple of Jupiter Stator[edit]

The temple of Jupiter Stator was located on the Palatine Hill in Rome, near the Velia. It was established to fulfill a vow (votum) made by the consul and general M. Atilius Regulus during the Third Samnite War in the 290s BC.[5] The fulfillment of a general's vow was the most common reason for the building of a new temple in Rome.[6]

The most likely date for the dedication day of the temple is January 13.[7]


In explaining the peripteros type of temple architecture, Vitruvius, gives the Temple of Jupiter Stator as an example: (this is the 146 BC one on the Circus Flaminius)

The peripteros has six columns in the front and rear, and eleven on the flanks, counting in the two columns at the angles, and these eleven are so placed that their distance from the wall is equal to an intercolumniation, or space between the columns all round, and thus is formed a walk around the cell of the temple.[8]

Velleius Paterculus says that the temple was adorned with works by the 4th-century BC Greek sculptor Lysippus that were originally commissioned for Alexander the Great. Velleius also implies that it was the first marble temple within Rome.[9]


According to a later tradition, Romulus himself had consecrated the sacred space (templum) with the same auspices by which he founded Rome. The Augustan historian Livy says that Romulus had made the initial vow, but the site had been a fanum, a sacred precinct or santuary, ritually delineated as a templum. The occasion of Romulus's vow was the war with the Sabines that broke out after the Romans had abducted the Sabine women as wives. Things were going badly for the Romans, as the Sabines had taken the citadel on the Capitoline Hill. Romulus prayed to Jupiter as "father of gods and men" to drive off the Sabines, and to expel likewise fear from the Roman soldiers and cause them xx Jupiter responded to Romulus's invocation and turned back the opposition.[10]


During the Catiline conspiracy, Cicero called a meeting of the Roman senate at the Temple of Jupiter Stator, and invoked the god to repel those plotting to overthrow the republic:

Drive them, Jupiter, from your altars and from the other temples, from the houses, and walls of your city, from the lives and fortunes of all citizens; overwhelm all these enemies of good men, these robbers of Italy, bound together by an infamous alliance of crimes, overwhelm them, now and after death, with eternal punishment.

Bronze Jupiter of Évreux[edit]

The bronze Jupiter now held by the Musée d'Évreux, dating to the second half of the 1st century, was discovered in 1840.[11] It was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1878.[12] In the 19th century and early 20th century, it was regarded as representing Jupiter Stator, whose temple might have been located on the site of the modern cathedral,[13] and the statue was promoted as Jupiter Stator by Gordon Home and others in travel guides for the region.[14] The statue was identified as Stator on the basis of typology, distinguished from Jupiter Fulminator ("the xxxxx Lightning") from the position of the arms and the "general attitude" of the work.[15] The presence of the statue, given its "magnificence"[16] and the attributes of Stator as a preserver of the state, was in keeping with ancient Évreux's administrative significance during the Imperial period. In antiquity, Évreux was Mediolanum Aulercorum, the "central place" of the Celtic Aulerci civitas, and takes its name from the [[

The museum does not currently label this Jupiter as a Stator. [17]

http://books.google.com/books?id=xuFAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA68&dq=Evreux+Stator&hl=en&ei=BZDJTMHgE4uyngeL76nzDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=DjSw8ZsGb7cC&pg=PA238&dq=Evreux+Stator&hl=en&ei=BZDJTMHgE4uyngeL76nzDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFEQ6AEwCDgU#v=onepage&q=Evreux%20Stator&f=false

References[edit]

  1. ^ See "Bronze Jupiter of Évreux" below.
  2. ^ Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology p. 408
  3. ^ J. Rufus Fears, "The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology", Aufstieg under Nierdergang der römische Welt II.17.2 (1981), p. 48.
  4. ^ Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War p. 342.
  5. ^ Livy 10.36.11 and 37.15–16; Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome, p. 327.
  6. ^ Rituals in Ink p. 71, summarizing Eric Orlin xxxxxxxx (1997), p. 35–75
  7. ^ Fears, "The Cult of Jupiter," p. 18.
  8. ^ Vitruvius, De architectura 3.2.5, giving other examples of this architectural type as the portico of the theatre of Metellus, in that of Jupiter Stator, by Hermodus, and in the temple of Honour and Virtue without a POSTICUM designed by Mutius, near the trophy of Marius.
  9. ^ Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome 1.11.3–5; Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religons of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 91–92.
  10. ^ Grimal, Dictionary of Classical Mythology, p. 244.
  11. ^ "Jupiter," Musée d'Évreux description.
  12. ^ M.E. Féray, Contribution à l'Histoire d'Évreux (Évreux, 1892), p. 17.
  13. ^ Recueil des Travaux de la Société Libre d'Agriculture, Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de l'Eure 4 (1880), p. 13; Hubert Smith, Congress of the Archaeological Society, "Archaeological Notes in Normandy," The Antiquary 20 (1889), p. 157; Jules Fossey, Monographie de la Cathédrale d'Évreux (Évreux, 1898), p. 4; R.A.L.A. de Burey, Les Archives Héraldiques d'Évreux (Évreux, 1890), p. 57; P.J. Chédeville, "Notes descriptives pour l'établissement et la tenue à jour des cartes palethnologiques," Bulletin de la Société Normande d'Études Préhistoriques 13 (1905), pp. 138–139, et al.
  14. ^ Percy Dearmer, Highways and byways in Normandy (London, 1900), p. 46, where it is noted as "chief" among the Roman antiquities of Évreux; Gordon Home, Normandy: The Scenery and Romance of Its Ancient Towns (London, 1905), p. 63; Cyril Scudamore, Normandy (London, 1906), p. 155; et al.
  15. ^ "Chronique," Revue de Champagne et de Brie 1 (1889), p. 777. At that time, it was dated to the end of the 3rd century.
  16. ^ Féray, Contributions, p. 17.
  17. ^ http://collections.musees-haute-normandie.fr/collections/artitem/07030000180

Sources to look up[edit]


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