The Curia Julia

In 44 BC Julius Caesar tore down Faustus’ reconstructed Curia in order to make way for his own Forum. However, the work on Caesar’s new forum was interrupted by his assassination in that same year. The project was eventually
completed by Caesar’s adopted son Augustus in 29 BC

From AD 81 to 96 the Curia Julia was restored under Domitian. In AD 283, this Curia was destroyed by the fire of emperor Carinus . From AD 284 to AD 305, the Curia was then rebuilt by Diocletian. It is the remnants of Diocletian’s building that we see today. In AD 412, the Curia was restored again, this time by Urban Prefect Flavius Annius Eucharius Epiphanius.

Conversion to church

The restored Curia

In AD 630, the Curia was converted into the Church of St. Hadrian by Pope Honorius I. This saved the building from being used as a source for building materials, just as it did for the Pantheon and the Baths of Diocletian. Between 1935 and 1938, under Mussolini, the Church of St. Hadrian was deconsecrated and restored to show its ancient form.

Description of the Curia Julia

The exterior of the Curia Julia features brick-faced concrete with a huge buttress at each angle. The lower part of the front wall was decorated with slabs of marble. The upper part was covered with stucco imitation of white marble blocks. A single flight of steps leads up the bronze doors. The current bronze doors are modern replicas; the original bronze doors
were transferred to the Basilica of St. John Lateran by Pope Alexander VII in 1660

Interestingly enough, a coin was found within the doors during their transfer. This coin gave archaeologists valuable insight into the original appearance of the Curia Julia, especially the prominence of its chalcidicum or portico. Such a portico would have been a prominent feature of the exterior of the Curia Julia during ancient times.

The interior of the Curia Julia is fairly austere. The hall is 25.20 meters long by 17.61 meters wide. There are three broad steps that could have fitted five rows of chairs, or a total of about three hundred senators. The walls are stripped, but originally were veneered in marble two-thirds of the way up. The two main features of the interior of the Curia Julia
are its “Altar of Victory” and its striking floor.

At the far end of the Curia’s hall could be found the “Altar of Victory”. It consisted of a statue of Victoria, the personification of victory, standing on a globe, extending a wreath. This altar was placed in the Curia by Augustus to celebrate Rome’s military prowess, and more specifically his own victory at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The altar was removed in the 4th century as part of a general backlash against the pagan traditions of ancient Rome.

The other main feature of the Curia’s interior, the floor, is the prominent exception to the colorless interior of the Curia Julia. Featured on the floor is the Roman art technique of opus sectile, in which materials are cut and inlaid into walls and floors in order to make pictures of patterns. It is described by Claridge as “stylized rosettes in squares alternate with opposed pairs of entwined cornucopias in rectangles, all worked in green and red porphyry on backgrounds of Numidian yellow Phrygian purple”

Significance of the Curia Julia

In his Res Gestae, Augustus writes of the project: “I built the Senate House... with the power of the state entirely in my hands by universal consent, I extinguished the flames of civil wars, and then relinquished my control, transferring the Republic back to the authority of the Senate and the Roman people. For this service I was named Augustus by a decree of the Senate”. Unfortunately such a relinquishment of power was truer in word than in deed and the construction of the
Curia Julia coincided with the end of Republican Rome.

In the past, the Curia Hostilia and Comitium “were oriented by the cardinal points of the compass, which may have marked them out as specially augerated space and at any rate set them off obliquely from the Forum rectangle that formed over the centuries”. Breaking with tradition, the Curia Julia was reoriented by Julius Caesar “on more ‘rational’ lines, squaring it up with the rectangular lines of the Forum and even more closely with his new forum, to which the new Senate House formed an architectural appendage more in keeping with the Senate’s increasing subordination”. The loss of the power by the Roman Senate during the Imperial Period is reflected by the Curia Julia’s less prominent location and orientation.

Although they were designed to serve the same function, the relationship between the Curia Hostilia and the Curia Julia is far more complex then mere succession. In fact, there could hardly be a better illustration of the changing role of the Roman Senate than a comparison of the positioning of the Curia Hostilia and the Curia Julia. While the prominence of the former reflects the strength of the Republic, the rather inconspicuous location of the latter conveys the enervation of the Senate with the rise of the Empire. That is not to say that the two buildings are without similarities. Both the Curia Hostilia’s Tabula Valeria and the Curia Julia’s altar of Victory in the Curia Julia, attest to the enduring preeminence of Rome’s military, despite the changing role of the Senate. By comparing and contrasting the two Curiae one is able to gain a surprisingly informative glimpse into classical Rome.
Not only in terms of the Senate, but in terms of the wider political climate as well.