Rambles in Rome / An Archæological and Historical Guide to the Museums, Galleries, Villas, Churches, and Antiquities of Rome and the Campagna

by S. Russell Forbes

THE CURIÆ VETERES (19).

Romulus divided the people into three tribes, and each tribe into ten curiæ (Dionysius, ii. 8), thus making thirty curiæ in all. Each curia had its own priests and separate dining-room and chapel, which were also called curiæ (Ibid., ii. 23). The only one of these which we have mentioned as existing at a late period is the one connected with the Palatine: as we have seen, it is one of the objects Tacitus gives us for the line of the plough. Now, on the Palatine, on that line, we have a ruin below the present surface agreeing with the time of Romulus in its construction, to which no name has been given by the topographers, but which we consider as the Curiæ Veteres mentioned by Tacitus. It now supports the Auditorium of Domitian.