CURIA
(Chur) Graubünden, Switzerland.
Roman vicus and fort E of the Rhine in the Schanfigg
valley. (The non-Roman name is mentioned in
Ant. It.
277.7 and
Tab. Peut.). Curia was on a military road
from Italy to Lake Constance, and at the N end of the
Julier, Splügen, and Septimer passes. This strategic position made the site an important administrative center of
Raetia from the early 1st c. A.D. on. By the late 3d c. or
the 4th its military post was turned into a fort. The settlement was then a municipium. From A.D. 451 on Curia
was the seat of a bishop; it has been continuously inhabited ever since.
The vicus was mainly on the S bank of a Rhine tributary, the Plessur, and on the slopes of the Pizokel.
Occupation goes back at least to the early Iron Age, and
in Roman times covered an area of more than 80,000 sq.
m. The Late Roman fortress, on a rocky spur of the
Mittenberg on the N bank of the Plessur, lies beneath
the bishop's palace and the cathedral. Its plan was triangular (area ca. 9040 sq. m). Some foundations, especially at the N edge of the plateau such as those of the
Marsöl tower, may belong to it. There was a cemetery
in the area of the Martiaskirche. The Raetisches Museum
is in the Hofstrasse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Poeschel,
Die Kunstdenkmäler Graubündens 7 (1948) 3-6; F. Staehelin,
Die Schweiz in
römischer Zeit (3d ed. 1948) 271, 331, 369-70; H. Lieb
& H. Wüthrich,
Lexikon Topographicum der römischen
und frühmittelalterlichen Schweiz (1967) 51-53; C. M.
Wells,
The German Policy of Augustus (1972) 79; excavations:
Bündner Monatsblätter; Schriftenreihe des
Rätischen Museums 1- (1965-);
Jb. Schweiz. Gesell. f.
Urgeschichte 53 (1966-67) 118, 133-36; 54 (1968-69)
85; 57 (1972-73) 301-2.
V. VON GONZENBACH
