The history of this temple has long been a matter of intense debate among scholars.  I have done my best below to summarise the main lines of argument and come to a conclusion.  However, please do not rely on it: read it critically, check the original sources and reach your own conclusion.  (That is good advice for all of this site, but particularly for the following section and, indeed, for this page as a whole.)

Pre-History: Romulus and Jupiter Stator

Livy described how Romulus came to vow this temple during the battle in which he repelled the Sabines, who were attempting to rescue their kidnapped women.  The Sabines descended from the Capitoline Hill and stormed across the marshy area that would become the Forum, pushing the Roman army back towards the Palatine.  Defeat seemed inevitable:

1. “... the Roman line gave way and was beaten back to the vetus porta Palati .  [However], Romulus, himself, who was also carried away with the general rout, raising his arms to Heaven, prayed:
   

2. ‘O Jupiter, commanded by thy birds, I laid the first foundation of the city here on the Palatine Hill.  The Sabines are [now] in possession of the citadel .... But if you ... stop [the Roman soldiers’] shameful flight ... I solemnly vow to build a temple to you as Jupiter Stator, [in memory of the fact that] this city was saved by your immediate aid.’ 
   

3. Having offered up this prayer, ..., he cried out [to his army]:
   

4. ‘At this spot, Romans, Jupiter ... commands you to halt and renew the fight.’
   

5. The Romans halted as if they had been commanded by a voice from Heaven" (‘History of Rome’, 1:12).
   

Dionysius of Halicarnassus also recorded this temple and its location:

1. “[After the battle] ... Romulus [built a temple that he had vowed] to Jupiter Stator, near the Porta Mugonia ..., which leads to the Palatine Hill from the Sacra Via, because this god had heard his vows and had caused his army to stop in its flight and to renew the battle; ... ” (‘Roman Antiquities’, 2: 50: 3).
   

Livy’s “vetus porta Palati “ was clearly Dionysius’  ‘Porta Mugonia’.  It was still extant in Varro’s day (i.e. in the first half of the 1st century BC):

1. “... inside [the circuit of the so-called Servian] walls, I see there are gates on the Palatine, [called]: Mucionis ...; Romulana ... ; [and]  the Janual gate ...” (De Lingua Latina’ 5: 164: 5).
   

These were gates in the old wall around the Palatine, which the Romans attributed to Romulus: the wall itself had probably disappeared by Varro’s time. 

Atilius Regulus’ Temple

Livy later recorded that Atilius Regulus, the consul of 294 BC, vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator during a battle against the Samnites (in the ‘mopping-up’ operations after the Battle of Sentinum).  Faced with low morale among his soldiers:

1. “.... [Atilius], with his hands lifted up towards Heaven, ... vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator, if the Roman army should rally from flight and ... cut down and defeat the Samnites” (‘History of Rome’, 10:36).
   

Livy then explained that:

1. “The same vow had been formerly made by Romulus, but only the fanum - that is, the area appropriated for the temple - had yet been consecrated.  However, in this year [294 BC], [now that] the State [had] been twice bound by the same vow, it became a matter of religious obligation that the Senate should order the temple [itself] to be erected” ((‘History of Rome’, 10:37)
   

Eric Orlin (referenced below, p. 55) asserted that Livy’ phraseology implied that:

1. “The Senate ... explicitly declared that the State had been made liable twice for the temple of Jupiter Stator, once by Romulus and a second time by [Atilius].  The right of kings  [like Romulus] to make vows on behalf of the State is not surprising ... That the State considered the vow of [Atilius] to have placed it under an obligation  indicates that this prerogative [of kings]  in some fashion passed to the consuls during the Republic.”.
   

I wonder whether, in fact, Atilius had needed to pray in aid Romulus in order to put pressure on the Senate: since they had apparently initially resisted granting him a triumph (as described on the main page), he might have created this ‘religious obligation’ as a means of furthering his cause.  This would have been consistent with the suggestion of Peter Wiseman (referenced below, 2013, at p. 245) that:

1. “The real Jupiter Stator temple was vowed by M. Atilius Regulus in 294 BC, and it is likely that the whole story of Romulus and the Sabines dates from about that time.”
   

Whatever the circumstances, it does seem clear that the Senate accepted responsibility for the construction of the temple, on a site that could be credibly claimed as that of Romulus’ fanum, (although there is no way of knowing the basis for this claim). 

Unfortunately, Livy’s next book no longer survives, and nor does any other record of the dedication of the temple.  However, Ovid recorded its dies natalis, together with an indication of its location:

1. “The same day [27th June, is] the day of the temple of [Jupiter] Stator, which Romulus founded of old in front of the Palatine hill” (‘Fasti’, VI). 
   

This record received important confirmation in a fragment of an Augustan calendar from Priverno (now known as the ‘Fasti Privernati’) that was discovered in 2000.  As reported by Fausto Zevi (referenced below), it included a festival celebrated on 27th June in relation to the temple of:

“[Iovi] Statori in Palatio”

Fausto Zevi (at p. 52) observed that the epithet “in Palatio” provided a:

1. “... clarification that was intended to distinguish this temple from the one erected by Metellus Macedonicus in the Circus Flaminius [discussed in the page on Victory Temples in Rome (146 BC)], whose dies natalis, following the Augustan reconstruction, fell on 23rd September” (my translation).
   

Cicero chose Atilius’ temple for the meeting of the Senate in 63 BC at which he made his first denunciation of Cataline.  In his ‘Oratio in Catilinam prima’ (the version of the speech that he published in 60 BC), he asked Cataline rhetorically whether  he was undisturbed by the fact that the Senate had had to meet in this “munitissimus” (extremely well-fortified) place.  Appian recorded a second occasion (in 59 BC) on which this safe location was put to good use:

1. “[A riot broke out in] the Forum while Caesar was still speaking. ... [Caesar’s] friends, however, led him, against his will, out of the crowd and into the neighbouring temple of Jupiter Stator” (‘Civil Wars’, II: 11).
   

Thus, the temple must have been a substantial structure, large enough to house the Senate,  and in an easily defensible location near the Forum. 

Tacitus included this among the temples that were destroyed in the great fire of 64 AD:

1. “It would not be easy to attempt an estimate of the  ... temples that were lost; but the flames consumed, in their old-world sanctity: the great altar and chapel of the Arcadian Evander to the Present Hercules [i.e. the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium]: the shrine of Jupiter Stator vowed by Romulus: ... and the holy place of Vesta with the Penates of the Roman people”, (‘Annals’, 15:41). 
   

Writing perhaps three decades after the fire, Plutarch (in his account Romulus’ victory over the Sabines) noted that:

1. “[After Romulus’ prayer to Jupiter, his soldiers halted the retreat and] made their first stand, ... where now is the temple of Jupiter Stator ...” (‘Life of Romulus’,  18: 5-7).
   

As Peter Wiseman (referenced below, 2013, at p. 246) observed:

1. “... since Plutarch refers to [the temple] in the present tense, it was evidently rebuilt.”
   

Original Location

Note that, with the exception of the Regia and the Temple of Vesta (upper left),

none of the structures labelled in bold letters in this plan existed before the fire of 64 AD.

My representations of the ‘Conventional’ and ‘Coarelli’ models for the Sacra Via before 64 AD

(respectively above and below the later Temple of Venus and Roma) are purely indicative

As discussed above, Atilius Regulus built his temple at the  place at which (according to the general opinion of the time) Romulus  had halted the Sabine assault on the Palatine.  They had stormed across what became the Forum (at the top left in the plan) and along what became the Sacra Via, driving the Romans back a gate in the ancient wall around the Palatine.  Romulus had stopped the rout by this gate, which Dionysius described as the:

1. “... Porta Mugonia ..., which leads to the Palatine Hill from the Sacra Via” (see above). 
   

In short, the Romans placed the mythical temple vowed by Romulus  (and the Porta Mugonia beyond it) on a road that later led from the Sacra Via to the Palatine Hill.  It was here that Atilius’ temple was built. 

Two other accounts of Romulus’ engagement with the Sabines provide a few of clues about the assumed location of the temple:

1. ✴Plutarch reported that, after Romulus had stopped the rout, the Romans:
   

2. “... closed their ranks again and drove the Sabines back to where the so‑called Regia now stands, and the temple of Vesta.  Here, [they prepared] to renew the battle ...” (‘Life of Romulus’,  18:7 - 19:1).
   

3. Thus Romulus’ temple was assumed to have been dedicated at a spot far enough from the Regia and the Temple of Vesta for this to constitute a second military engagement.
   

4. ✴Dionysius described the Sabine retreat after Romulus’ intervention as follows:
   

5. “... they found it no easy matter to retreat to their camp, pursued as they were down from a height and through a hollow way, and in this rout they sustained heavy losses” (‘Roman Antiquities’, 2: 43: 4).
   

6. Thus, in Dionysius; time (i.e. the 1st century BC), the road from the Porta Mugonia to the Sacra Via (and hence to the Forum) was set in something that sounds like a relatively steeply descending ravine.
   

Peter Wiseman, in the website ‘Reconstruction and the Historic City: Rome and Abroad’ (2014), reproduced part of a speech by the so-called Pseudo-Cicero, which purported to be that of the real and desolate Cicero as he left Rome for exile in 58 BC: 

1. “I beseech you too, Jupiter Stator, ... in whose temple I drove from the walls Catiline’s hostile attack, whose temple ... was consecrated by Romulus in Palatii radice (at the foot of the Palatine) after the defeat of the Sabines...” (‘Priusquam in exsilium iret’: 24)
   

Another writer, Servius placed the Regia [marked on the plan]:

1. “ ... in radicibus Palatii finibusque Romano fori” (‘ad Aeneid’, 8:363).
   

Thus, at least we can reasonably locate the temple at the broadly same altitude as the Regia on the lower slopes of the Palatine.  

Ovid (who imagined that a book he had written in exile was being guided to the Palatine library) used Atilius’ temple as a landmark:

1. “This is Caesar’s Forum, this is the Sacra Via named from the rites:
   

2. -here is Vesta’s temple [to the right in the plan above], ...;
   

3. -here was old Numa’s tiny palace [i.e. the Regia, also to the right]. 
   

4. Then, turning right, here is the gate to the Palatine [i.e. Porta Mugonia], here is [Jupiter] Stator; [then, presumably after ascending the hill] in this place, Rome was first founded”, (‘Tristia’, 3: 1: 29-32).
   

Unfortunately, we do not know how far the book needed to travel along the Sacra Via after passing the Regia before it turned right to climb the Palatine (although, in the light of the previous paragraph, we may reasonably assume that, once it had turned right, the Temple of Jupiter Stator and then Porta Mugonia were immediately in view).

The uncertainty about the point at which Ovid’s book turned right is at the heart of what has been a long debate about the original location of Atilius’ temple, as discussed below.

Traditional View

Peter Aicher (referenced below, at p. 139) summarised the traditional view:

1. “The [literary] sources locate the Temple of Jupiter Stator close to:
   

2. -the Palatine;
   

3. -the [Sacra Via]; and
   

4. -the old Romulean (Palatine) city’s Porta Mugonia. 
   

5. Most topographers place the nexus of these three locations close to the Arch of Titus [lower right in the plan above] and have tentatively identified ruins of a building [actually, of a podium] near the arch as the remains of the Jupiter Stator temple.”
   

This traditional view is reflected in the work of Platner and Ashby (referenced below):

1. “Just east of the Arch of Titus, the site of which corresponds to the literary references [to the site of the temple], are ruins consisting of a large rectangular platform of concrete, on which are some enormous blocks of peperino and travertine ... This foundation has generally been identified as that of the temple of Jupiter Stator of the Flavian period [i.e. as rebuilt after the fire]”. 
   

However, Platner and Ashby expressed doubts about the strength of the archeological evidence available at that time for the pre-Neronian situation

1. “Some tufa walls, which were recently excavated close to the northeast side of the arch and beneath its foundations, may have belonged to the temple at an earlier date when its position was slightly different, but the supposition is very doubtful”.
   

Adam Ziokowski (referenced below, 2004, at pp. 71-2) pointed out, even after the most recent excavations (discussed below) , the lower strata of the site remained unexamined:

1. “All that we have ... is the Severan terminus ante quem (190-210/20 AD).  As long as the site’s stratigraphy remains unknown, our main clue to its earlier history is its position in a gap between the Arch of Titus and north of the Vigna Barberini, a position that clearly indicates that a post-Neronian building stood there, most probably since the time of Domitian ....”
   

Nonetheless, , after revisiting the literary sources and considering what new archeological evidence there was , Ziolkowski (at p. 74) concluded:

1. “All things considered, I can only repeat - if anything, with greater confidence than in the past - the traditional verdict: the podium by the Arch of Titus is that of the temple of Jupiter Stator.”
   

In relation to the identity of the road to the right taken by Ovid’s book, Ziolkowski asserted (later in p. 74):

1. “Perhaps the main reason why - for the 100 years before [Filippo Coarelli’s publication in 1983, discussed below] - almost every student of Rome’s topography identified the temple of Jupiter Stator with the podium by the Arch of Titus was its position on the saddle that provided the easiest access to the Palatine: a perfect site for the temple that stood just outside the Porta Mugonia, the principal gate to Romulean Rome”.
   

Thus, in this scenario, Ovid’s book travelled as far as the later site of the Arch of Titus, before turning right along the road that led most conveniently to the Palatine summit.

Filippo Coarelli’s Intervention in 1983

Filippo Coarelli, in his book of 1983 (referenced below, at pp. 26-33), proposed that the rotunda (to the left in the photograph above) that Maxentius had  built on the Sacra Via in ca. 311 AD stood on the site of Atilius’ temple.  As can be sen on the plan, this was much closer to the Forum than the conventional site near the Arch of Titus.  At the heart of this hypothesis was Coarelli’s conviction that the point at which the Sacra Via curved northwards towards the Carinae (i.e. away from the Palatine) was significantly closer to the Forum than had been previously thought.  (I have attempted in the plan above to represent the conventional view and the alternative proposed by Coarelli).  Fabiola Fraioli (referenced below, at p. 290) accepted this location:

1. “... the [Temple of Jupiter Stator] was ... near the summa Sacra Via [the point at which the street turned north]” (my translation),
   

and cited a book by Andrea Carandini (referenced below, 2004).  Thus, in Table 89, Atilius’ temple is placed on the future site of the Maxentian rotunda.

However, as mentioned above, a fragment of the the ‘Fasti Privernati’ discovered in 2,000 confirmed that, in the Augustan period (and hence also, as far as we know, at the time of its construction), Atilius’ temple was securely “in Palatio”.  As Fausto Zevi (referenced below, at p. 58) pointed out :

1. “... it seems impossible to apply the epithet ‘in Palatio’ to a building such as [the Maxentian rotunda] that is situated to the north of the [Sacra Via].... [A] return the traditional hypothesis [above] ... seems to emerge as an effectively obligatory solution” (my translation).
   

Filippo Coarelli, in his book of 2012 (referenced below, at p. 108), conceded:

1. “The fact now established that the temple was “in Palatio” allows us to exclude the possibility that the [Maxentian rotunda] replaced it in its original location, as I had previously I thought.  The fact is, it was destroyed in the fire [of 64 AD], and perhaps never rebuilt.” (my translation).
   

He observed (at p. 109) that:

1. “It goes without saying that the original temple must have been in [a location other than that of the rotunda], albeit one not far from it: certainly, however, on the other side of the Sacra Via and thus “in Palatio” (my translation).
   

Suggestion of Peter Wiseman (2013)

1. 

   
   

2. Site of the House of the Vestals
   

3. The Sacra Via ran in front of the Maxentian rotunda (upper left) and Basilica Nova
   

4. towards what is now the  church of Santa Francesca Romana (upper right)
   

In his review of Filippo Coarelli’s book of 2012 (above), Peter Wiseman (referenced below, 2013, at pp. 246-7) drew attention to four particular literary sources for the temple’s original location (all discussed above):

1. ✴Pseudo Cicero had placed it “in Palati radice (at the foot of the Palatine), a phrase used elsewhere to describe the Regia”;
   

2. ✴Ovid (‘Tristia’, 3: 1: 29-32) had placed it beyond the Regia as one left the Forum, on a road to the right, just before the gate in the ancient wall around the Palatine;
   

3. ✴Appian (‘Civil Wars’, II: 11) had placed it on an easily defensible site near the Forum; and
   

4. ✴Dionysius (‘Roman Antiquities’, 2: 50: 3) had placed its precursor (i.e. Romulus’ fanum) near the Porta Mugonia, which led to the Palatine from the Sacra Via.
   

He observed that:

1. “These passages are not only consistent with each other; they also indicate a site just across the Sacra Via from the [Maxentian rotunda]”.
   

He concluded that:

1. “If the temple of Jupiter Stator ... was where our sources suggest, .... then [after the fire of 64 AD] Nero’s architects might well have rebuilt it [elsewhere, as discussed below] ... , leaving the original site to be redeveloped as the extended and realigned ‘house of the Vestals’ [see the plan above]”. 
   

In other words, in this scenario, Ovid’s book  turned right almost immediately after passing the Regia and took the relatively steep road that then led to the summit.

The House of the Vestals stands on an artificial terrace that was apparently cut out of the relatively steep slope of the Palatine Hill as part of the post-Neronian redevelopment.  Had Atilius’ temple previously stood on the slope here, all remains of it would have been lost when the terrace was cut.  This, of course, might well account for the lack of archeological evidence for its existence.

My Conclusions

It seems to me that the site proposed for Atilius’ temple by Fabiola Fraioli can probably be discounted because Atilius’ temple was not on the Sacra Via: Ovid’s book had turned south off the Sacra Via before it  saw the temple on the lower slopes of the Palatine.

That leaves us with the specific sites proposed (respectively) by Adam Ziolkowski and Peter Wiseman, both on the lower slopes of the Palatine.  The choice depends upon judgement about how far Ovid’s book travelled along the Sacra Via before turning right:

1. ✴according to Ziolkowski, it travelled as far as the later site of the Arch of Titus, and then turned right along the road that provided the easiest access to the Palatine; while
   

2. ✴according to Wiseman, it travelled to a point only slightly beyond the Regia, before turning right to follow a steeper road to the summit (essentially following in reverse the route of the Sabines’ difficult retreat).  Thus he suggested that Ovid’s book saw the temple on the site that was later used for the House of the Vestals.
   

It seems to me that the key point in favour of the traditional site - that it stood on the easiest road from the Sacra Via to the Palatine - is also its key weakness: why would the Romans of Atilius’ time have imagined that this was the site of the military engagement between Romulus and the Sabines?   If we assume that Dionysius’ account of the Sabine’s difficult retreat depended on (and accurately represented) Republican sources, surely the road to the Palatine down which the Sabines retreated should have been steeper than this one was.

Peter Wiseman’s view appears to me to be more convincing in this respect, because it does indeed give us a site from which the Sabine retreat would have been difficult.  It also gives us an easily defensible structure near the Forum: if the temple faced downhill (before the slope was terraced), its podium would presumably have been raised at the front, making it relatively easy to defend.  However, this hypothesis leaves us looking for a new location for the temple after the fire of 64 AD. 

Temple as Rebuilt after the Fire of 64 AD

We have what seems to be an eye-witness record of the post-Neronian temple, in Plutarch’s account of Cicero’s first denunciation of Cataline in 63 BC (mentioned above), which was probably written after his (Plutarch’s) visit to Rome in 92 AD.  In it, he recorded that:

1. “... Cicero went forth and summoned the Senate to the temple of [Jupiter Stator], situated at the beginning of the Sacra Via, as one goes up to the Palatine” (‘Life of Cicero’, 16:3).
   

(I have taken this from Adam Ziolkowski’s book, referenced below, 2004, at p. 13). 

It is important to remember that Plutarch was referring to the Sacra Via after its redevelopment in the Neronian and Flavian periods.  As Peter Wiseman (referenced below, 2013, at p. 246) summarised:

1. “After the fire, Nero’s architects redeveloped the whole area from the Forum up to the ridge where the Arch of Titus now stands, turning the old Sacra Via into a grand rectilinear avenue flanked with porticos, leading up to the [vestibule of Nero’s] new imperial palace [later the site of the Temple of Venus and Roma].”  Thus, if Plutarch had accurately located the rebuilt temple, it was at one or other end of this new Sacra Via:
   

2. ✴near the later site of the Temple of Venus and Roma; or
   

3. ✴near the Forum
   

depending upon which he perceived to have been at its beginning (as opposed to its end). 

Temple from a relief from the Tomb of the Haterii

Museo Gregoriano Profano, Musei Vaticani, Rome

In my page on the Flavian Dynasty: Haterii Temple and the Temple of Jupiter Stator,  I suggest that those scholars who identify a temple depicted on the relief above was probably the Temple of Jupiter Stator, as rebuilt after 64 AD.  I also suggest that it stood near the arch that was depicted next to it in this relief, which is identified by inscription ‘Arcus in Sacra Via summa’. 

This arch was probably destroyed to make way for the Temple of Venus and Roma, which was built by the Emperor Hadrian and almost certainly completed by his successor, Antninus Pius.  I point out in the page mentioned above that many of the coins that he minted in his 4th consulship (in 141 AD) depicted this temple, presumably to commemorate its completion.  Another group of the coins of this year depicted Jupiter Stator, for the first time in the imperial coinage.  I suggest that this was because Antoninus Pius had also completed the restoration (or perhaps the rebuilding) of the Temple of Jupiter Stator at this time, presumably because it had been affected by the construction of the nearby Temple of Venus and Roma. 

The majority of scholars locate it instead in one of two other locations:

1. ✴on the later site of the Maxentian rotunda (on the site in the plan above marked ‘F’, because this is, for example, the view of Fabiola Fraioli (referenced below, at p. 295 and Tables 100a and 104); or
   

2. ✴near the Arch of Titus (on the site above marked ‘Z’’, because this is, for example, the view of  Adam Ziolkowski (referenced below, 2004, at p. 74).
   

Each of these scholars has the temple rebuilt after the fire on essentially its original location.  However, my proposed site (marked ‘P’ ) requires that it was rebuilt in a new location.  However, this proposed location is consistent with Adam Ziolkowski’s interpretation of Plutarch’s phrase locating the rebuilt temple (at p. 73):

1. “... we learn from Plutarch that, in his day, ... the temple of Jupiter Stator stood by that end of the Sacra Via from which one went to the Palatine, or, in other words, at the point where the Sacra Via met the ‘Palatine street’.”
   

I preferred it to:

1. ✴‘F’, because there is surely insufficient room for the temple on this restricted site between the Flavian Templum Pacis complex and the Sacra Via; and
   

2. ✴‘Z’, because that site is not on the Sacra Via at all.
   

Site ‘P’ has what seems at first to be another advantage: it is in the location one would naturally expect for aedes Iovis Statoris listed under regio IV (Templum Pacis).  The relevant extracts are as follows:

1. “REGIO IV: TEMPLVM PACIS continet [i.e. contains]:
   

Notitia:                                                   Curiosum:

                                             ...                                                                    ...

                               Metam sudantem                                      Metam sudantem 

                       Templum Romae et Veneris                           Templum Romae

                           Aedem Iovis Statoris                                        Aedem Iobis

                                viam Sacram                                                 viam Sacram

                     Basilicam Constantinianam                      Basilicam novam et Pauli

                          Templum Faustinae                                    Templum Faustinae

                             Basilicam Pauli                            [see Basilicam novam et Pauli above]”

                                             ...                                                                    ...

However, no temple remains have been found at this end of the Sacra Via.  Indeed, a temple on the north side of this street would have had to been demolished to make way for Maxentius’ basilica nova (later the basilica Constantiniana).  The most likely scenario is that it was destroyed by the fire that seriously damaged the Temple of Venus and Roma in ca. 307 AD.  The probable situation thereafter is addressed in the page on Maxentius and the Temple of Jupiter Stator.