Keith
10-23-2005, 02:08 AM
It seems that many games and peoples' impressions of what the curia, the Senate house, actually looked like are wrong.
Most seem to present the building in some sort of grand temple style similar to Greek temples with white marble and lots of columns. Unfortunately, the Roman Senate building was nothing of the sort.
Julius Caesar had a bulding for the Senate constructed in 43BC, the Curia Julia.
"[i]The curia proper is a hall 25.20 metres by 17.61 metres, of brick-faced concrete, with a huge buttress at each angle; the lower part of the front wall was decorated with slabs of marble, while the upper part (like the exterior of the thermae of Caracalla and Diocletian) was covered with stucco in imitation of white marble blocks with heavily draughted joints. The travertine consoles and the brick cornice which they support (which are continued round the triangular pediment) were also coated with stucco. A flight of steps led up to the entrance door, to which belonged an epistyle bearing this inscription: mperant[e . . .|[n]eratius in . . .|[c]uriam sen[atus] . . . The second line no doubt contained the name of an unknown praefectus urbi (fifth century). When the building became a church, a metrical (?) inscription was painted over it, of which only the first word, aspice, is preserved. Over the door were three large windows. A small portion of the pavement of the interior, of various coloured marbles, was recently exposed to view, but covered up again.
The marble facing of the internal walls was destroyed in 1562 (LR 266; LS iii.221 (for details, see Archivio Boccapaduli Arm. ii. Mazzo iv.46.10). The brick facing of the exterior and cornice were coated with stucco to represent marble (ib.), just as was the case in the Thermae of Diocletian.
In 303 A.D. there were erected in front of the curia, outside the comitium, two colossal columns, in celebration of the vicennalia and decennalia of Diocletian and his colleagues in the empire. The first base, found in 1490, is lost; but the second, decorated with inferior reliefs (one of which represents the suovetaurilia, in imitation of the Trajanic slabs) which was found in 1547, still lies not far from the niger lapis (Mitt. 1893, 281; HC 95‑96; CIL vi.1203‑1205, 31261, 31262). For a glass cup commemorating the same vicennalia see BC 1882, 180‑190."
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/Images/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/Forum_Romanum/Curia/1.jpg
Foreground as seen from the southeast.
Most seem to present the building in some sort of grand temple style similar to Greek temples with white marble and lots of columns. Unfortunately, the Roman Senate building was nothing of the sort.
Julius Caesar had a bulding for the Senate constructed in 43BC, the Curia Julia.
"[i]The curia proper is a hall 25.20 metres by 17.61 metres, of brick-faced concrete, with a huge buttress at each angle; the lower part of the front wall was decorated with slabs of marble, while the upper part (like the exterior of the thermae of Caracalla and Diocletian) was covered with stucco in imitation of white marble blocks with heavily draughted joints. The travertine consoles and the brick cornice which they support (which are continued round the triangular pediment) were also coated with stucco. A flight of steps led up to the entrance door, to which belonged an epistyle bearing this inscription: mperant[e . . .|[n]eratius in . . .|[c]uriam sen[atus] . . . The second line no doubt contained the name of an unknown praefectus urbi (fifth century). When the building became a church, a metrical (?) inscription was painted over it, of which only the first word, aspice, is preserved. Over the door were three large windows. A small portion of the pavement of the interior, of various coloured marbles, was recently exposed to view, but covered up again.
The marble facing of the internal walls was destroyed in 1562 (LR 266; LS iii.221 (for details, see Archivio Boccapaduli Arm. ii. Mazzo iv.46.10). The brick facing of the exterior and cornice were coated with stucco to represent marble (ib.), just as was the case in the Thermae of Diocletian.
In 303 A.D. there were erected in front of the curia, outside the comitium, two colossal columns, in celebration of the vicennalia and decennalia of Diocletian and his colleagues in the empire. The first base, found in 1490, is lost; but the second, decorated with inferior reliefs (one of which represents the suovetaurilia, in imitation of the Trajanic slabs) which was found in 1547, still lies not far from the niger lapis (Mitt. 1893, 281; HC 95‑96; CIL vi.1203‑1205, 31261, 31262). For a glass cup commemorating the same vicennalia see BC 1882, 180‑190."
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/Images/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/Forum_Romanum/Curia/1.jpg
Foreground as seen from the southeast.