A very valuable passage of Varro (Lin. Lat. v. 155) describes the buildings at this end of the Forum: -

COMITIUM, ab eo quod coibant eo comitiis curiatis et litium causa. CURIAE duorum generum, nam et ubi curarent sacerdotes res divinas, ut CURIAE VETERES,¹ et ubi Senatus humanas, ut CURIA HOSTILIA, quod primum aedificavit Hostilius Rex. Ante hanc ROSTRA: quojus loci id vocabulum, quod ex hostibus capta fixa sunt rostra. Sub dextra hujus a comitio locus substructus, ubi nationum subsisterent legati qui ad Senatum essent missi. Is GRAECOSTASIS appellatus, a parte ut multa. SENACULUM supra GRAECOSTASIM ubi AEDIS CONCORDIAE et BASILICA OPIMIA. SENACULUM vocatum ubi SENATUS, aut ubi Seniores consisterent.

Again, Livy (xlv. 24) speaks of the Comitium vestibulum Curiae.

The Curia. It will thus be seen that the position of the Curia gives the key to that of a number of other very important buildings, and the identification of its site will enable us to fix with some degree of certainty the sites of most of the structures mentioned by Varro in the above-quoted passage.²

The chief place of meeting of the Roman Senate was called the Curia from the thirty tribes or Curiae into which Romulus was said to have divided the Populus, after an alliance had been made between the Latins and Sabines. Livy (i. 30, and xxii. 55) records that Tullus Hostilius enlarged a temple, and made it itno the Curia, which from his name was called the Curia Hostilia- a title which lasted throughout the Republican period till the building was burnt during the riot at the funeral of Clodius in 52 B.C. The Curia was then rebuilt by Faustus Cornelius Sulla, the son of the dictator, under the name of the Curia Cornelia (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 26, and Dion Cass. xl. 50); but, owing to party jealousy, was soon after pulled down and rebuilt by Augustus, 29 B.C., its name being changed to Curia Julia in honour of Julius Caesar. This is recorded in the inscription of Ancyra - CVRIAM . ET . CONTINENS . EI . CHALCIDICVM . . . FECI.

Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv. 27 and 131) mentions a picture by the Athenian Nicias of the nymph Nemea seated on a lion which was brought from Asia by Silanus, and dedicated in the Curia by Augustus.

Little is known about the Chalcidicum and another adjoining building called the Athenaeum, both of which are mentioned by Dion Cassius (li. 22) in connection with the Curia Julia, which he calls Bouleuthrion to 'Ioulieion.

The Curia was burnt and rebuilt in the reign of Domitian (Hieron. An. xcii. i. p. 443), and, lastly, was again rebuilt after a fire by Diocletian; see Catal. Imp. Vienn. printed by Preller, Regionem der Stadt Rom. p. 143.

Existing Remains of the Curia. Without going through all the evidence on the subject, suffice it to say that there are many strong reasons for believing with the Comm. Lanciani that the Church of S. Adriano is the Curia of Diocletian, though greatly altered and partly rebuilt. The end towads the Forum is the best preserved part; see fig. 27. This is of concrete, with the usual brick facing; the whole was once covered with fine hard stucco, divided into lines of false joints, so as to imitate marble bricks. The cornice is of brick covered with enriched mouldings in stucco, and is supported by a series of marble consoles.

A close examination of the brick facing with its sham relieving arches, and the stucco and marble details, show that this is clearly a building of classical times, which closely resembles, even in minute details of the cornice and in the imitation marble blocks, parts of the baths of Diocletian.

Fig. 28 is a facsimile of a sketch in the Bodleian Library made by Pirro Ligorio about 1560, rather earlier than the date of Du Perac's drawing. It does not quite agree with the latter, as it shows a projecting hexastyle portico, which, according to Ligorio, had been recently destroyed by Cardinal Bellaio for the sake of its marble columns.

It is possible that the columned architrave of the door shown by Du Perac (fig. 27) existed inside the large portico (fig. 28) and remained for some time after the portico had been pulled down. In that case there would be no contradition in the two drawings.

The present floor level of the church is nearly 20 feet above that of the Forum; but the old level existed as late as the sixteenth century, and was reached by a flight of steps descending to the large bronze doors, which then formed the entrance to the building. This is shown by Du Perac in his Vestigj di Roma a very valuable set of etchings made about the middle of the sixteenth century.

These ancient bronze doors, certainly considerably earlier than the time of Diocletian, were removed by Alexander VII., and now form the principal entrance at the end of the nave of the Laterna Basilica. At the same time the lower part of the building was filled in with earth, and the level of the floor raised to its present height.

These interesting examples of ancient bronze work are still in perfect preservation. In the seventeenth century, when the Lateran Basilica ws remodelled and hideously disfigured, these doors were slightly lengthened by strips of bronze beind added at the bottom and top. These additions can, however, easily be distinguished by the stars with which they are ornamented; otherwise the doors are in a perfectly genuine state.

The ancient bronze columns by one of the transept altars in the same Basilica are mentioned below in vol. i. p. 371.

Fig. 27 shows the end of the building; the upper part is taken from measurements of that portion which is now visible, while the lower part is derived from measurements of the existing bronze doors, which give the size of the opening, and show how deeply the original level is buried below the present road. The columns and marble architrave of the door are copied from Du Perac's drawing.

In Lanciani's Ancient Rome,, p. 80, a facsimile is given of a sixteenth-century plan which shows three large halls of ancient date on the north-west side of the Curia, extending over the modern Via Bonella and the site of the Church of S. Martina. The facades of these buildings are in the same line as that of the Curia which they adjoin.^2b Probably one of these halls was the ancient Secretarium Senatus, which is recorded in an inscription found on the site of S. Martina to have been built by Flavianus in 399 A.D., and rrestored after a frie by Epifanius, Praefectus Urbis; Gruter, Inscrip. clxx. 5.

1. The Curiae Veteres was one of the buildings on the slopes of the Palatine, which Tacitus mentions to indicate the line of the walls of Roma Quadrata and the Pomoerium. Its site is now unknown.

2. The Curiae was an inaugurated building, and therefore a templum, but not sanctum, as is explained by Varro, Lin. Lat. vi. 10. In the same way the Comitium and the Rostra were both templa, though they were not roofed over.

2b. This is indicated by a dotted line on the Forum Plan.

John Henry Middleton, The Remains of Ancient Rome (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892), 237- 242.