Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/919

Rh CI 'HI ATI us. riciiin, .iiioiit H. (.. (in, to whom two of Cicero'b letters are addresNed («n) wrote a letter in B. c. 44, entreating him to interest himself in the affairs of the inhabitants of Biithrotum, and reminding him of the friendship which had existed between the father of Cupien- nius and Cicero himself. (Cic. ad All. xvi. l(i, D.) 2. The Cupiennius attacked by Horace {Sat. i. 2. 36) on account of his adulterous intercourse with Roman matrons, is sfiid by the Scholiast oji Horace to have been C. Cupiennius Libo of Cnraa, a friend of Augustus. There are some coins extant bearing the names of L. Cupiennius and C. Cupiennius ; but who these persons were, is not known. (Eckhel, v. p. lf)9.) CURA, the person rfication of Care, respecting whose connexion with man an ingenious allegorical btorv is related by Hyginus. {Fab. 220.) [L. S.J CURE'TES. [Zeus.] CURIA GENS, plebeian, is mentioned for the first time in the beginning of the third century B. c, when it was rendered illustrious by M Cu- rius Dentatus. [Dentatus.] This is the only cognomen which o6curs in the gens : for the other members of it, se6 Curius. [L. S.j CURIATlA GENS. The existence of a pa- trician gens of this name is attested by Livy (i. 30, comp. Dionys. iii. 30), who expressly mentions the Curiatii among the noble Alban gentes, which, after the destruction of Alba, were transj)lanted to Rome, and there received among the Futres. This opinion is not contradicted by the fact that in B. c. 401 and 138 we meet with Curiatii who were tri- bunes of the people and consequently plebeians, for this phenomenon may be accounted for here, as in other cases, by the supposition that the plebeian Cairiatii were the descendants of freedmen of the patrician Curiatii, or that some members of the patrician gens had gone over to the plebeians. The Alban origin of the Curiatii is also stated in the story about the three Curiatii who in the reign of TuUus Hostilius fought with the three Roman brothers, the Horatii, and were conquered by the cunning and bravery of one of the Iloratri, though some writers described the Ctiriatii as Romans and the Horatii as Albans. (Li v. i. 24, &c. ; Dionys. iii. 11, &c.; Pint. FurdlL. Gr.et. Rom. 16; Flor. i. 3 ; Aurel. ViCt. de Vit. Id. 4 ; Zonar. vii. 6 ; Niebuhr, //<*/. of Fome, i. p 348 ; comp. HoRATius.) No members of the patrician Curiatia gens, 80 far as our records go, rose to any eminence at Rome^and there are but few whose names have come down to us. The only cognomen of the gens in the times of the republic is Fistus. For the plebeians who are mentioned without a cognomen, see CiKiATit's, [L. S.] CURIA'TIUS. I. P. CuRiATius, tribune of the people in B. c. 401. The college of tribunes in that year laboured under great unpopularity, as two of them had been appointed by the co-optation CURIO. SOk i>f the college under the indueiice of the paliicians. P. Cnriatius and two of his colleagues, M. Metilius an<l M. Miiiucius, endeavoured to counteract the unpopularity and turn the hatred of the people against the patricians by bringing a charge against Sergius and Virginius, two military tribunes of the year previous, whom they declared to be the au- thors of all the mischief and the cause of the peo- ple's sufferings. Both the accused were condemned to pay a heavy fine, and the tribunes of the people soon after brought forward an agrarian law, and. prevented the tribute for the maintenance of th«» armies being levied from the plebeians, (Liv. v. H, 12.) 2. C. CtRiATius, tribune of the people in B. c 138, is characterised by Cicero (de Ley. iii. 9) as a homo irifimus. He caused the consuls of the year, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica (whom he nick- named Scrapio) and D. Jutjius Brutus to be thrown into prison for the severity with which they pro- ceeded in levying fresh troops, and for their disre- gard to the privitege of the tribunes to exempt certain persons from military service. (Liv. Epd. 55 ; Val. Max. iii. 7. § 3.) There are extant several coins, on which we read C. Cur. Trige. or C. Cur. F., and which may belong to this tribune or a son of his ; but it is just as probable that they belonged to some patrician C. Curiatius, about whom history fur- nishes no infoiination. (Eckhel, v. p. 199, &c.) One C. Scaevius Curiatius, who lived in the early period of the empire, is mentioned in an inscrip- tion in Orelli (No. 4046) As duumvir in the muni- cipium of Veii. [ L. S.] CURIA'TIUS MATERNUS. [Matebnus.] CU'RIO, the name of a family of the Seiibonia gens. 1. C. ScRiBONius Ci RIO, was appointed curio maximus in b. c. 174, in the place of C. Mamilius Vilnius, who had been carried off by the plague. (Liv. xli. 26.) 2. C. ScRiBoMus Curio, praetor in b. c. 121, the year of C. Gracchus's death, was one of the most distinguished orators of his time. Cicero mentions one of his orations for Ser. Fulvius, who was accused of incest, and states, that when a young man he thought this oration by far the best of all extant orations ; but he adds, that afterwards the speeches of Curio fell almost into oblivion. He was a contemporary of C. Julius Caesar Strabo, Cotta, and Antonius, and against the last of these he once spoke in the court of the centumviri for the brothers Cossus. (Cic. Brui. 32, de Invent, i. 43, de Orat. ii. 23, 33 ; Schol. Bob. in Aryum. Orat. in Clod, et Cuiion. ; Pseud.-Cic. ad Herenn^ ii. 20; Plin. //. N. vii. 41.) 3. C. ScRiBONius CuRio, a son of the former. In B. c. 100, when the seditious tribune L. Appu- leius Saturninus was murdered. Curio was with the consuls. In B. c. 90, the year in which the Marsic war broke out. Curio was tribune of the people. He afterwards served in the army of Sulla during his war in Greece against Archelausv the general of Mithridates, and whes the city of Athens was taken. Curio besieged the tyrant Aristion in the acropolis. In B. c. 82 he was in- vested with the piaetorship> and in 76 he was made consul together with Cn. Octavius. After the expiration of the consulship, he obtained Ma- cedonia as his province, and carried on a war for three years in th* liorih of his province agaiusl