Salus
A Roman goddess, the personification of health, prosperity, and the public welfare. In the
first of these three senses she answers closely to the Greek Hygeia (q. v.), and was
accordingly represented in works of art with the same attributes as the Greek goddess. In the
second sense she represents prosperity in general. In the third sense she is the goddess of
the public welfare (Salus publica or Romana). In this capacity a temple was vowed to her in
the year B.C. 307 by the censor C. Iunius Bubulcus, on the Quirinal Hill, which was afterwards
decorated with paintings by C. Fabius Pictor. She was worshipped publicly on the 30th of
April, in conjunction with Pax, Concordia, and Ianus. Salus was represented, like Fortuna, with a rudder, a globe at her feet, and sometimes in a sitting posture,
pouring from a patera a libation upon an altar, round which a serpent is winding. The goddess
Strenia among the Sabines is the counterpart of the Roman Salus.
