Curtia, a patrician family, which migrated with Tatius to Rome.
Curtīllus, a celebrated epicure, &c. Horace, bk. 2, satire 8, li. 52.
Marcus Curtius, a Roman youth who devoted himself to the gods’ manes for the safety of his country about 360 years B.C. A wide gap, called afterwards Curtius lacus, had suddenly opened in the forum, and the oracle had said that it never would close before Rome threw into it whatever it had most precious. Curtius immediately perceived that no less than a human sacrifice was required. He armed himself, mounted his horse, and solemnly threw himself into the gulf, which immediately closed over his head. Livy, bk. 7, ch. 6.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 6.——Quintus Rufus. See: [Quintus].——Nicias, a grammarian, intimate with Pompey, &c. Suetonius, Lives of the Grammarians.——Montanus, an orator and poet under Vespasian. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 4.——Atticus, a Roman knight, who accompanied Tiberius in his retreat into Campania. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 4.——Lacus, the gulf into which Curtius leaped. See: [Marcus Curtius].——Fons, a stream which conveyed water to Rome from the distance of 40 miles, by an aqueduct so elevated as to be distributed through all the hills of the city. Pliny, bk. 36, ch. 15.
Curūlis magistratus, a state officer at Rome, who had the privilege of sitting in an ivory chair in public assemblies. The dictator, the consuls, the censors, the pretors, and ediles, claimed that privilege, and therefore were called curules magistratus. The senators who had passed through the above-mentioned offices, were generally carried to the senate-house in ivory chairs, as also all generals in their triumphant procession to the Capitol. When names of distinction began to be known among the Romans, the descendants of curule magistrates were called nobiles, the first of a family who discharged that office were known by the name of notii, and those that had never been in office were called ignobiles.
Cussæi, a nation of Asia, destroyed by Alexander to appease the manes of Hephæstion. Plutarch, Alexander.
Cusus, a river of Hungary falling into the Danube, now the Vag.
Cutilium, a town of the Sabines, near a lake which contained a floating island, and of which the water was of an unusually cold quality. Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 12; bk. 31, ch. 2.—Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, bk. 3, ch. 25.—Livy, bk. 26, ch. 11.
Cyamosōrus, a river of Sicily.
Cyăne, a nymph of Syracuse, to whom her father offered violence in a fit of drunkenness. She dragged her ravisher to the altar, where she sacrificed him, and killed herself to stop a pestilence, which, from that circumstance, had already begun to afflict the country. Plutarch, Parallela minora——A nymph of Sicily, who endeavoured to assist Proserpine when she was carried away by Pluto. The god changed her into a fountain now called Pisme, a few miles from Syracuse. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, li. 112.——A town of Lycia. Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 27.——An inn-keeper, &c. Juvenal, satire 8, li. 162.
Cyăneæ, now the Pavorane, two rugged islands at the entrance of the Euxine sea, about 20 stadia from the mouth of the Thracian Bosphorus. One of them is on the side of Asia, and the other on the European coast, and, according to Strabo, there is only a space of 20 furlongs between them. The waves of the sea, which continually break against them with a violent noise, fill the air with a darkening foam, and render the passage extremely dangerous. The ancients supposed that these islands floated, and even sometimes united to crush vessels into pieces when they passed through the straits. This tradition arose from their appearing, like all other objects, to draw nearer when navigators approached them. They were sometimes called Symplegades and Planetæ. Their true situation and form was first explored and ascertained by the Argonauts. Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 12.—Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 85.—Apollonius, bk. 2, lis. 317 & 600.—Lycophron, li. 1285.—Strabo, bks. 1 & 3.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Ovid, Tristia, bk. 1, poem 9, li. 34.