Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus

Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus (fl. late 4th century BC) was a Roman general and statesman, he was elected consul of the Roman Republic thrice,[1] he was also appointed dictator or magister equitum thrice, and censor in 307 BC. In 311, he made a vow to the goddess Salus that he went on to fulfill, becoming the first plebeian to build a temple.[2] The temple was one of the first dedicated to an abstract deity, and Junius was one of the first generals to vow a temple and then oversee its establishment through the construction and dedication process.[3]

The desultory manner in which Junius Bubulcus survives in the historical record obscures the stature indicated by the number of high offices he held from 317 to 302 BC; it has been observed that he "cannot have been as colourless as he appears in Livy."[4]

  1. ^ Livy 9.20.7, 21.1, 28.2, 30.1; Diodorus Siculus 19.77.1, 20.3.1 (where Ἰοὐλιος is an error for Iunius); Fasti Capitolini Chr. 354; Festus 458L. Unless otherwise noted, offices, dates and citations of ancient sources from T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (American Philological Association, 1951, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 155, 158, 159, 160–161, 162, 165; vol. 2, p. 577.
  2. ^ Anna Clark, Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 50.
  3. ^ Richard D. Weigel, "Roman Generals and the Vowing of Temples, 500–100 B.C.," Classica et Mediaevalia (Museum Tusculanum Press, 1998), p. 122; Eric M. Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Brill, 1997), pp. 179–180.
  4. ^ Christopher John Smith, The Roman Clan: The gens from Ancient Ideology to Modern Anthropology (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 43.