Gradivus
i. e. the striding or marching, a surname of Mars, who is hence called gradivus pater and rex gradivus. Mars Gradivus had a temple outside the porta Capena on the Appian road, and it is said that king Numa appointed twelve Salii as priests of this god. The surname is probably derived from gradior, to march, or march out, and we know that the soldiers, when they marched out, sometimes halted near his temple. (Liv. 1.20, 7.23; Serv. ad Aen. 3.35; Ov. Fast. 6.191, &c.; Fest. s. v. Gradivus.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.