LACUS CURTIUS
the name attached to a structure in the middle of the
forum (Plaut. Cure. 477), of which the remains are now visible. Three
explanations of the origin and meaning of this name were current in
Rome. One was that at the beginning of the regal period, a chasm
suddenly opened in the middle of the forum valley, which could be
closed, the soothsayers said, only by the sacrifice of that '
quo plurimum
populus Romanus posset.' Thereupon a youth named Curtius leaped in
and the opening closed (Varro,
LL v. 148;
Liv. vii. 6; Val.
Max. v. 6. 2;
Plin.
NH xv. 78; Fest. 49; Cass. Dio fr. 30. I;
Zonaras vii. 25; Suidas
ii. I. 572 ;
Oros. iii. 5). Another story was that the swamp in the centre
of the forum was called lacus Curtius from the Sabine Mettius Curtius
who rode his horbe into it when hard pressed by the Romans and escaped
(
Liv. i. 12. 9, 13. 5; Varro,
LL v. 149;
Dionys. ii. 42;
xiv. 11; Plut.
Rom. 18). This is the story that is represented on a relief, found in 1553
between the column of Phocas and the temple of Castor and preserved
in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Museo Mussolini), which is itself a
late copy of an original of perhaps the second century B.C. (
Mitt. 1902,
322-329; S. Sculpt. 324-326; SScR 316-318; Cons. 36). For the
inscription on the other side, see
TRIBUNAL PRAETORIS. According to
the third explanation the lacus was simply a spot of ground that had
been struck by lightning and then enclosed by a stone curb, or puteal,
by C. Curtius, consul in 445 B.C. (Varro,
LL. v. 150).
In the time of Augustus the lacus Curtius,
siccas qui sustinet aras,
was no longer a lacus but dry ground (Ov.
Fast. vi. 403-4), and into it a
small coin was thrown yearly by every Roman in fulfilment of his vows
for the emperor's safety (Suet. Aug. 7, 57). According to Kobbert
(RE i. A. 576) it is the character of the lacus Curtius as mundus which is
primary; but its connection with the underworld made it religiosus,
and the coins were probably offerings to the powers of the underworld
(WR 235). Pliny (
NH xv. 78) states that an altar that stood near the
lacus was removed at the time when Julius Caesar celebrated his last
games in the forum, but whether this altar was afterwards restored and
was one of the siccae arae of Ovid is unknown.
The existing remains of the lacus consist of two successive layers of
slabs of grey cappellaccio and brown Monte Verde tufa, both attributed
to the same (the Sullan) period by Van Deman and Frank, forming an
irregularly trapezoidal field about 10 metres long and nearly 9 in greatest
width, on which is a third layer of blocks of travertine surrounded with
a curb. Only part of this layer has been preserved. On its curb are
marks that indicate the existence of a screen or balustrade, on which the
relief mentioned above may have stood. On the western part of the lacus
are traces of rectangular bases which suggest the arae siccae of Ovid, and
near the eastern corner is the plinth of what was evidently a puteal,
or perhaps a round altar of cappellaccio, standing on a twelve-sided
base. The structure in its present shape is clearly a restoration of the
earlier lacus, carried out at the time of the Caesarian changes in the
forum. For description and discussion of the ruins and lacus in general,
see
CR 1904, 329-330;
1905, 74;
BC 1904, 181-187;
Mitt. 1905, 68-71;
Atti 580-582; HC 144-148; Hiilsen, Forum, Nachtrag 15-18;
Jord.
i. 2. 399;
RE iv. 1864, 1892;
xii. 378;
Suppl. iv. 503-4;
NA 1909,
369-375; Th6d. 74, 268; DR 243-249;
JRS 1922, 8, 20, 21; TF 76.
