A native of Gaul, he had a successful career as a provincial governor and officer at the imperial court, becoming a close friend and adviser of the Emperor Julian.

[3][4] He authored a Neoplatonic religious treatise titled On the Gods and the Cosmos, in support of Julian's pagan reaction against Christianity.

As a sign of their great respect for him, the military command first nominated him to become their emperor, but Salutius refused the honor, pleading illness and old age, and the purple then fell to Jovian.

[12] Salutius, and not his contemporary Flavius Sallustius, is almost certainly to be identified as the Salustios (Ancient Greek: Σαλούστιος) who, according to Photios, wrote the theological pamphlet On the Gods and the Cosmos (Περὶ θεῶν καὶ κόσμου Peri theōn kai kosmou).

[13][14][15][16][17] The work, a kind of catechism of 4th-century Hellenic paganism, owes much to that of Iamblichus of Chalcis, who synthesized Platonism with Pythagoreanism and theurgy, and also to Julian's own philosophical writings.