Talk:Curia

Just want to say, Rome had 30 tribes, and the word curia, seems derived from tribe: meaning: organization, group thinking, government, rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.104.8.44 (talk) 22:12, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Copied from WP:RD/H
Under the jus Latii (which was granted to many foreign colonies, especially in Gaul), the main unit of local self-government was the municipality. Each of these was governed by the local senate, properly known as Curia. At first their members were elected by the popular assembly. As the civic life was extinguished following the reign of Constantine the Great, the curia came to be dominated by rich landowners (usually those who possessed twenty five jugera or more). The local senate, or curia, concerned itself with the matters of municipal finances, police, roads, bridges, and public buildings. If the municipium was large enough, the curia had the charge of "heavy, and sometimes ruinous, expenses for the amusement of the populace, prescribed by opinion and custom, if not by law". During the late empire, the curial class was largerly hereditary and shared a lot of responsibilities. You will find their outline in Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire By, by Samuel Dill. The classical treatments of the subject include Theodore Mommsen's The Provinces of the Roman Empire, and A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions, by Frank Frost Abbott. They are available on Google Books. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Senatorial Elections
The article claimed: "Senators themselves were not elected since the early Republic, having been transformed into a hereditary nobility." This is really misleading. In the early Republic Senators weren't elected at all, instead becoming enrolled by a Censor. In general the same families dominated the Senate, but it was not a rule. Toward the later Republic it also became common for anyone elected to a magistracy to become a Senator. Again, most of these were the aristocrats, but not all of them. However, in the Sullan reforms it became law that anyone achieving election to a Quaestorship become a Senator. Thus, as time went on, Senators were increasingly elected by the people as opposed to being appointed by heredity (and, in a technical sense, it was never, ever, actually hereditary, it just may have seemed that way sometimes). Finally, there are famous cases of people without family history in the Senate, novus homo, becoming elected to the Senate. See Cicero for the most famous example. Trainik (talk) 15:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Bold re-write needed
While the facts seem to be in place (with some questionable wording) the overall scope of the article is horribly under written. This comes across as dictionary definition. There is absolutely no mention of the Curias of ancient Rome by name. It also states that Curia became known as a building by the time of the imperial age but misses the point of mentioning the Roman King Tullus Hostilius building the first named Curia Building.....which totally shoots that claim out of the water.

The nut shell version of the above statement....this article blows...


 * Indeed. I'd say there needs to be a page for the basic Roman cultural grouping of the curiae, with mention - but no more - of the building that took its name from them. The medieval and modern stuff should go elsewhere. The Roman curia of the Catholic church has connection to the ancient apart from its name. - Eponymous-Archon (talk) 04:17, 11 February 2018 (UTC)


 * This article has been vastly rewritten since an anonymous IP user posted this unhelpful and unsigned comment six years ago. It's absurd to excise material about the senate house, since that's what the word usually referred to in Roman history.  It's also impossible to name all of the original curiae, or wards, since only about seven out of thirty names have been preserved, and only a few tiny scraps of information are known about any of them, all of which is found in the article on Roman tribes (the curiae made up the subdivisions of the three Romulean tribes, although I believe that's mentioned here).  The fact that the word continued to refer to institutions at least notionally related to the original uses, a court, assembly, or location where a court or assembly met, is perfectly relevant, even if the sections discussing medieval and clerical curiae could use a rewrite.  But there's nothing wrong with mentioning them here, and every reason to do so.  They're hardly being given exhaustive treatment, are they?  P Aculeius (talk) 04:55, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Where was Julius Caesar assassinated?
... if the Curia Cornelia was demolished and the Curia Julia was not yet finished? (as stated in the article) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.11.55.147 (talk) 18:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Evedently the construction of the Curia Julia did not require the demolition of the Curia Cornelia, which was still the senate-house, and site of, Caesar's assassination. The date of its demolition is uncertain, as is whether it was demolished as construction of the Curia Julia proceeded, or at some time after that (our article says that it was converted into a temple—and obviously that could not have been until after the senate had someone else to meet; certainly not in a temporary location, as accounts of the assassination speak of it occurring in the senate-house, and the Curia Julia could not have been ready yet).  I have reorganized the order of the sentences in the paragraph to make it less confusing.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:07, 9 May 2023 (UTC)