The Curia Hostilia

According to Livy, Romulus (771–717 BCE), Rome’s legendary founder, established the Senate, originally a royal advisory council of a hundred men, the heads of the noble clans (patres) whose descendants became Rome’s aristocracy (the patricians). Where the Senate held its sessions in the early decades of its existence is unknown. Eventually, using war booty from the conquest of the neighboring Latin town of Alba Longa, King Tullius Hostilus (672–641) brought the Alban aristocrats to Rome and, for his newly enlarged Senate, built a “meeting house,” a Curia (Fig. 1.1), on the northwest side of the Forum just north of and adjacent to the voting area (the Comitium) for Rome’s earliest popular assembly, the comitia curiata. Like the surviving building, this Curia, “which,” says Livy, “continued to be called the Curia Hostilia as late as the time of our own fathers,” was a rectangular structure with a wooden roof that was formally considered a temple. Oriented to the cardinal points, its south entrance opened directly into the Comitium, an area enclosed by rows of seats that served as the Curia’s steps. Major historical paintings decorated the interior. The one installed in 363 by M. Valerius Messala commemorated his Sicilian victory over King Hiero of Syracuse and the Carthaginians during the First Punic War.