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For the Roman Empire, all roads led to Rome and our ancient sources agree that the Curia, the senate house for Rome, was the center of its power. Writing in the 1880s, the historian, Rodolfo Lanciani, summed up the opinion of antiquity when he called it “the most important building in the Roman world.”¹ Yet, despite its ancient importance, the building was destroyed, partially ruined, or transformed throughout its history. By the 1870s, generations of work made it barely recognizable to its original design. Scholars at the time assumed it was up on the Capitoline hill.² A later church, the S. Adrian had claimed its shell, and the remains of the original building had been covered or stripped leaving the viewer with little understanding for what the Curia looked like.

Even the earliest modern sketchings did not significantly improve the public’s understanding of the senate building. Although Sallustio Peruzzi designed a layout of the building in the sixteenth century, the map shows few measurements nor does it display any architectural features to assist the viewer in understanding what the Curia may have looked like.³ It should be explained that by his time, though, the Curia was reused as the church of Santo Hadriano.

The writer’s aim, on the contrary, has been to present a general account of the Curia Julia’s architecture as a whole. In the first part, after reviewing the history and evolution of the Curia, the writer will focus on its later fortunes and its excavations. Nonetheless, there are still large gaps in the writer’s knowledge about the ancient senate building. Pieces that were stripped from it over the centuries, such as the architrave and interior tiling, allow only broad outlines of original plans. Naturally, these hypotheses will be explained if not clearly revised whenever additional parts of the Curia are discovered.

THE FOUNDATION

Because the first Curia, the Curia Hostilia, was founded by the third legendary king of Rome, Tullus Hostilius, the plan was laid sacred and accuracy in shape had to be preserved.⁴ As for the reason to sanctify the building, legend has it that the Senate was forbidden to vote a measure unless assembled inside a temple. Thus, Cicero called it the templum inauguratum⁵ or the ‘Divine Temple.’ This building was so sacred that foreign ambassadors and women were not permitted to enter. In addition, only senators, the senator’s sons, and their grandchildren were allowed inside, but since the doors were open during debates, people could listen to the discussions from within.⁶

Sulla altered the layout by widening it during his own reign in 80 BC. He removed statues of Pythagoras and Alcibiades from their places at the corner of the Comitium and Curia.⁷ On its side wall, or at one side of it (in latere curiae), was a painting of M. Valerius Messala’s victory over Hiero and the Carthaginians in 263 BC.⁸

The Curia Hostilia was angrily destroyed. Fury abounded the Roman streets when in 54 BC, Clodius Pulcher was murdered by his nemesis, Milo, along the Via Appia south of Rome. Fights broke out and a large group of Clodius’ followers, headed by a Claudius, carried their leader’s body to the Curia Hostilia, piled the furniture from inside to make a fire, and burned down the Curia Hostilia along with the Basilica Porcia.⁹

THE LAYOUT

The Curia Hostilia’s position in regard to other monuments is given by Pliny the Elder and showed an orientation to the cardinal directions.¹⁰ The Curia Julia that replaced the older model altered the direction. The only reason that this was done, in my opinion, is that the son of Sulla, Faustus, laid out the travertine pavement under his father’s principles: the sacred building could be modified to fit whatever situation was needed for the current time.¹¹

By 50 BC, Dictator Julius Caesar prepared a new large Curia over the area of the Comitium just near the previously burned down senate building in a north to south angle. Scholars believe that he adjusted Faustus’ foundation and worked upon what Faustus already built so that the new Curia would not be called the Curia Cornelia after Sulla’s family, but the Curia Julia after Caesar. It was not until a year after his assassination, though, that the Curia was continued by the Second Triumvirate.¹² The second Curia for the Roman Forum was completed and dedicated to Caesar in 29 BC by Augustus.¹³

Augustus not only continued the construction of Curia Julia but he also added the Chalcidicum on the right side. Bartoli believes that the Chalcidicum held the offices and archives for the writing and preservation of the Senate decrees including records of honorable dismissal of legionaries, but the ancient sources cannot explain the buildings primary use as of yet. Domitian restored the curia in 94 AD as it still was partially damaged by the fire of Nero in 66 AD.¹⁴ It was no doubt that Domitian took as this opportunity of dedicating the Chalcidicum to his patron goddess Minerva, whence it acquired the name of Atrium Minervae.¹⁵ It was a court surrounded by a colonnade. The atrium was still visible into the 16th century until Sixtus V (1585-1590) established the Via Bonella dividing the S. Martina e Luca from the S. Adriano.¹⁶

The site also contained a smaller hall for committee meetings called the Secretarium Senatus and adjoining rooms beside the large assembly room. The Secretarium Senatus probably also formed part of the structure of Augustus, though there is no direct evidence of its existence before the time of Diocletian.¹⁷ A city prefect in 412 AD restored it after the serious damage from the Gothic invasion under King Alaric. It was apposite for the protection of these buildings that they were transformed into Christian churches early in the Roman Empire’s collapse. Pope Honorius I (625-38) dedicated the Curia Julia to the martyr Hadrianus of Nicomedia and the Secretarium probably not much later to the martyred Roman virgin, Martina. By the 1800s, the Santa Martina was now a crypt and a full story above the original church was the Santa Luca. They were eventually combined in name and commonly called the church of Santa Martina e Luca.¹⁸

COINS

Huelsen believed the Curia under Augustan restoration is represented in the coins of 29-27 BC what he previously connected with the Basilica Julia.¹⁹ He referred to the coins’ building as the temple of Julius; while Richmond wrongly refers it to a little shrine just beyond the Palatine’s Atrium of Augustus.²⁰ On an Augustan coin from Tarentum, a statue of Victory (Victoria) is shown in the apex of the pediment and is represented on other coins of the same date.²¹ The Tarentine people, whom were several hundred miles from Rome, may have assumed that Augustus would have made their statue an acroteria as the coin shows. Cassius Dio wrote three centuries later that Augustus set up the large statue in the senate chamber owned by the people of Tarentum to commemorate the Curia and his recent victory over Egypt.²² Though Cassius Dio mentioned the Victory was still in the Curia during his time, the statue may have moved from above the pediment. I cannot rule out the possibility of its transfer, especially since Domitian restored the building in the 80s AD but there is just as great a possibility that there were two Victories, one inside and the other on the apex. Constantius II in 357 with his anti-pagan measures removed the Victory from the building.²³

THE FACADE

The Curia proper is a large plain hall 25.2 meters by 17.61 meters with a very lofty roof that needed the addition of a large rectangular buttress at each corner (Fig. 1). As shown on the coins and on the Rostra relief, the Curia Julia had a low portico and high pediment with a lone figure of unknown character inside the tympanum. The pediment is framed by travertine consoles sustaining a brick cornice. The coin from Tarentum has inscribed on the frieze the words IMP. CAESAR, which explains that Julius Caesar’s nephew, Augustus, completed the building at the time he was given the title Imperator Caesar.

Between the frieze and the roof of the portico three large windows with segmental arches admitted light to the interior (Fig. 7). These three windows can still be seen today in the later façade of S. Adriano. This shows that S. Adriano is still the same building as of Diocletian’s Curia, for his work repaired the pediment and windows from the Curia of Caesar and Augustus. During the building’s life as S. Adriano e Luca, the windows were walled up and the portico removed. Interestingly enough, the three front windows are bigger and not aligned with the single window on the Curia’s flanks though the single window carries the same shaped arch and diagonal bars.

The Diocletian Curia could weakly be called an octastyle building though the wide-spaced Ionic columns raised on a high portico were placed more as a way to hold up the portico’s roof than as an intentional addition to the Curia, itself. The imprints of the colonnade were found within the drain gutter during the Curia’s restoration in the 1930s.²⁴ Though the columns share Vitruvius’ proportions to that of other columns, they are too thin to weigh importantly to the façade. A flight of steps led up to the axial entrance door, to which belonged an epistyle bearing the inscription: [i]mperant[e...] [n]eratius in.... [c]uriam sen[atus]...²⁵ The second line, no doubt, contained the name of the city prefect that restored the Secretarium Senatus in 412 AD. The Curia truly only begins at the top of the steps for below it is a generic foundation. Immediately above it is the base of the front wall was decorated with plates of marble along the entire front and turning the left and right corners with two more panels leaving the look as either incomplete or an intentional draw for the viewer to look toward the single door. In the upper part the walls, now bare of ornament, was covered with stucco in imitation of white marble blocks with heavily draughted joints.²⁶

Very little may be said about the back. Joined to the Forum of Caesar, the Curia has a single large window above and below there are doors to either side leading to the main hall. The remaining portion of the Curia hid behind the wall representing the Forum of Caesar.

The difference between the façade of S. Adriano and the Diocletian Curia shows the gradual elevation of soil which occurred in the Middle Ages; for the entrance was twice raised so that the sill of the 19th century S. Adriano door lay at the height of the lintel of the Diocletian door. The ancient doorway was also twice walled up with fragments of marble and valuable building stones in the lower half and rough blocks of tufa in the upper section. The first incline, which lies about three meters above the level of the Diocletian building was perhaps united in some way with Gregory IX’s renovation of the church in 1229. In the centuries which followed the terrain rose again noticeably so that by the late 16th century, it was necessary to descend steps to its entrance as is shown in old drawings and engravings. When the church was restored once more in 1654, the door was again raised roughly three meters. As a result of this renovation, the ancient windows were blocked (Ill. 4).

The Curia truly only begins at the top of the steps for below it is a generic foundation. Immediately above it is the base and then tall rectangular marble panels along the entire front and turning the left and right corners with two more panels leaving the look as either incomplete or an intentional draw for the viewer to look toward the front door.

THE INTERIOR

The central floor is paved with panels of opus sectile, in which porphyry and serpentine figure largely. To either side are three broad low marble-faced steps to keep the curule chairs of the more notable senators, the top step broader than the others for the senators who stood (Ill. 6). It is from these broad steps that senators would vote their ayes and nays by stepping to the left or right of the building.²⁷ At the far end, between the doors mentioned above, is a low dais of two marble steps about twelve feet square for the presiding magistrate (Ill. 5).

Along each side wall is a gray marble wainscoting finished with a molding, above which are serpentine, porphyry and marble panels rhythmically placed with only the interruption of three widely spaced niches or doors to break the continual pattern.²⁸ The center niche carries a segmental pediment, while the others hold triangular marble pediments with a flat head (Fig.3). These seem to have had rich architectural frames. Each niche has paired mantle brackets holding which must have held alabaster Corinthian colonnettes.²⁹ The marble facing of the internal walls was stripped around 1550 by Cardinal du Bellay and nothing remains of the decoration on the upper walls.³⁰

The marble paneling showed a need to carry a horizontal plane (Fig. 2). Above them and occasionally interrupted by the tips of the pediments was a long cornice. The next band carried tall gray rectangular panels that were only broken by mosaic lozenges and smaller rectangles. The last two bands consisted of uninterrupted work. The first was long white rectangular panels and the final height looked to be all cream stucco. The vaulted ceiling was made with heavily gilt lacunaria consisting of square coffers set with copper-looking discs in the center and a copper trim.³¹

Augustus placed two paintings inside the Curia. The first painting came from Asia by Silanus that Nicias of Athens painted.³² It presented Nemea seated on a lion holding a palm-branch in her hand, and standing at her side an old man leaning on a stick and with a picture of a two-horse chariot hung up over his head, on which the inscription said it was an encaustic design. The second painting, by Philocares, presented Glaucio and his son Aristippus with an eagle soaring above holding a snake within its claws.³³

LATER ADDITIONS

The Curia Julia, as it was now called, maintained a similar structure of the old Curia Hostilia, and it partially was burned during the fire of Carinus of 283 AD. Over time it was slowly repaired and reconstructed in which we see today, especially under Diocletian around 303 AD.³⁴ It is this restoration that we see today.

The Curia was converted to use as the church of S. Adriano under Honorius I (625-638 AD).³⁵ Borromini removed, restored, and relocated the bronze doors in the seventeenth century to serve the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano. At that time several coins were found between the plates, including one of Domitian. In 1935-1938 S. Adriano was deconsecrated and the Curia was restored to its ancient form. It is now used for the mounting of archaeological exhibitions of a temporary nature.

In the Curia proper, the height of the façade indicated the relative importance of this building to the entire Roman Forum. Its simple proportions and columns evoked a sense of order and scale sustained by restrained power. The richness of the architectural materials also ensured the same effect. The expensive marbles and paintings that ornamented the hall were unmistakable signs of an overwhelming imperial need to promote the Curia as center of the Roman World. Initially, the architectural ornament must have seemed only a minor expression of the building’s power, yet when compared with other structures within the Roman Forum, its simplicity inevitably recalled the chaste, classicizing forms that characterized the Senate, itself. Although the profiles of the cornice are similar to temples such as Vespasian and Saturn, the ornamentation was considerably more austere. All the visible artistic symbols commemorated the Roman military prowess. Confiscated paintings and statues of Victory possibly stood inside the Curia. Acroterian warriors on the roof with another Victory were easily seen by passer-bys. The frieze clearly stated Imperator Augustus to remind the Romans that an emperor existed. The Curia’s multiple images everywhere confronted the visitor. The Romans’ loyalty to the Empire was strengthened, and they understood the Curia’s central principles and power on which the Roman Forum had been established. This was the building where all senatorial laws were passed and where even the emperor must occasionally enter to legitimize himself to the Roman people.

The architectural discussion presented herein could not take into account all the material relevant to the Curia Julia. Consequently, new information now taking place in the last decade will almost certainly be published.

Endnotes

^{^}1 Rodolfo Lanciani, The Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome; a Companion Book for Students and Travelers (Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1897), 262. Abbreviated in the future as Lanciani.

^{^}2 John Henry Parker, Primitive Fortifications of the City of Rome, Volume 1 (Oxford: James Parker & Co., 1878), plate 27. Parker assumed that the Curia was in the basement of the Tabularium on the Capitoline Hill.

^{^}3 Alfonso Bartoli, Curia Senatus : lo scavo e il restauro (Roma : Instituto di Studi Romani, 1963), 10.

^{^}4 Varro[nis], M. Terentius, Lingua Latina: Librorum Quae Supersunt. Ed. Carolo Odofredo uellero. (Lipsia: Libraria Weidmanniana, 1833), V, 155.

^{^}5 Lanciani, 262.

^{^}6 Michael Grant, The Roman Forum (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970), 121.

^{^}7 Giuseppe Lugli, I Monumenti Antichi di Roma e Suburbia (Roma: Libreria di Scienze e Lettere, 1930), 108-109; Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Roman History, trans. Earnest Cary (New York, The Macmillan co., 1914-27), xl.49. Abbreviated in the future as Dio; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. H. Rack ham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1952), xxxiv. 26. Abbreviated in the future as Pliny, NH.

^{^}8 Pliny, NH, xxxv. 22.

^{^}9 Cicero, Pro Milone, ed. C. Cookson (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923), 90.

^{^}10 Pliny, NH, vii. 212; H. Jordan, Topographie der Stadt Rom in Altertum. Vol. I, Parts 1, 2; Berlin 1871-1884. 1.2.327

^{^}11 Samuel Ball Platner, Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Rev. Thomas Ashby (London: Humphrey Milford, 1929), 144. Abbreviated in the future as Platner.

^{^}12 Dio xliv.5. xlv. 17; xlvii. 19

^{^}13 Suetonius. Caligula. 60; Dio, li. 22

^{^}14 Platner, 144.

^{^}15 Notitia, Regio VIII. A copy of it is found in the Henri Jordan, Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum (Berlin, Weidmannsche buchhandlung, 1871-1907), 2.ii.539-574.

^{^}16 Christian Huelsen, Forum and Palatine, trans. Helen H. Tanzer, (NY: A. Bruderhausen, 1928), 30-31. Further abbreviated as Huelsen, F&P.

^{^}17 Dio, LI, 22. Living till the 230s AD, Dio mentioned the Chalcidicum and the Curia Julia together, but did not speak about the Secretarium Senatus. This suggests that the first two buildings were tied together but the Secretarium was not yet built though further investigation may say otherwise.

^{^}18 Huelsen, F&P, 30-31.

^{^}19 Christian Huelsen, The Roman Forum, trans. Jesse Benedict Carter. Ed. 2. (Rome, Loescher & co. 1906), p 51.

^{^}20 I. Richmond, “ ,” Journal of Roman Studies, (London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 1914), 218.

^{^}21 Platner, 144. He states the British Museum incorrectly puts the building in the basilica Iulia

^{^}22 Dio LI, 22.

^{^}23 Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum, trans. John C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, W. Heinemann ltd., 1935-39), xvi.10.5.

^{^}24 Giuseppe Lugli, I Monumenti Antichi di Roma e Suburbia (Roma: Libreria di Scienze e Lettere, 1930), p 111-112.

^{^}25 Livy, History of Rome, trans. Aubre de Selincourt (NY: Penguin Books USA, Inc., 1971), i.48; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993), iv. 38;

^{^}26 Platner, 144.

^{^}27 Michael Grant, The Roman Forum (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970), 118.

^{^}28 Lanciani, 264.

^{^}29 Grant, 118.

^{^}30 Lanciani, 264.

^{^}31 Ibid.

^{^}32 Pliny, NH, 35.131.

^{^}33 Ibid., 35.27-28

^{^}34 Huelsen, F&P, 30-31.

^{^}35 Lanciani, 264.

S. Adriano Il recinto della Scola Cantorum (see larger picture)	Curia: pianta generale (G. Ioppolo). (see larger picture)
Complesso di S. Adriano e S. Martina: planimetria di Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane (in pulito). (see larger picture)

To see further information about the Curia, check my other place, here.