CURIA HOSTILIA
the original senate house of Rome, situated on the north
side of the
COMITIUM (q.v.); cf.
Liv. xlv. 24. 12:
comitium vestibulum
curiae. Its construction was ascribed to Tullus Hostilius (Varro, LL
v. 55), and it was regularly called the curia Hostilia. It was approached
by a flight of steps (
Liv. i. 48; Dion.
Hal. iv. 38; cf.
Liv. i. 36. 5).
On its side wall, or at one side of it (
in latere curiae), was a painting of
the victory of M. Valerius Messala over Hiero and the Carthaginians
in 263 B.C. (Plin.
NH xxxv. 22; see
TABULA VALERIA (2)). It was
restored by Sulla in 80 B.C. and somewhat enlarged, the statues of
Pythagoras and Alcibiades, which had stood at the corners of the Comitium,
being removed (
Plin. xxxiv. 26; cf.
Dio xl. 49). In 52 B.C. it was
burnt down by the partisans of Clodius and rebuilt by Sulla's son Faustus
(Cic. pro Mil. 90, and Ascon. in loc. ;
1 Dio, loc. cit.; Cic. de fin. v. 2
(written in 45 B.C.):
Curiam nostram, Hostiliam dico, non hanc novam,
quae minor mihi videtur postquam est maior, must also refer to this
curia, and not to that of the elder Sulla, as Richter, 94, thinks).
In 44 B.C. it was decided to build a new curia (
Dio xliv. 5:
ἐπειδὴ τὸ
Οστίλιον καίπερ ἀνοικοδομηθὲν καθῃρέθη). Part of its site was occupied
by the temple of
FELICITAS (q.v.). The curia was, like the comitium,
inaugurated as a templum (Varro ap.
Gell. xiv. 7. 7).
According to what we know of the republican buildings which surrounded the comitium, the curia Hostilia should have faced due south
(HC pl. iii.), and its position in regard to other monuments is given by
Plin.
NH vii. 212 (midday was proclaimed by the
accensus consulis, cum
a curia inter rostra et Graecostasim prospexisset solem: a columna Maenia
ad carcerem inclinato sidere supremam (horam) pronuntiavit), which shows
either that it was necessarily orientated in the same way as the curia
Iulia (Jord. 1. 2. 327), or, more probably, that it lay further north.
As to its orientation, however, we must note that (a) that of the
ROSTRA VETERA (q.v.) varied considerably at different times (see
COMITIUM, p. 135), (b) that a flight of tufa steps 1.24 metre high, on
practically the same orientation as that of the curia Iulia, leads down to
the second level of the comitium (10.85 to 10.90 metres above sea-level),
which may belong to an earlier curia (Pl. 235, fig. 49) ; (c) that the fine
travertine pavement generally attributed to Faustus Sulla has quite a
different orientation from either. See
Jord. i. 2. 328-332;
Mitt. 1893,
86-91;
CR 1906, 134-135; P1. 229-230; DR 327-330.
2