in Roman antiquity, was used for the senate house. There were several curiae in Rome; as the curia calabra, said to be built by Romulus; the curia hostilia, by Tullus Hostilius; and the curia pompæia, by Pompey the Great.

Curia also denoted the places where the curia used to assemble. Each of the 30 curiae of old Rome had a temple or chapel assigned to them for the common performance of their sacrifices, and other offices of their religion; so that they were not unlike our parishes. Some remains of these little temples seem to have subsisted many ages after on the Palatine hill, where Romulus first built the city, and afterwards resided.

CURLA, among the Romans, also denoted a portion or division of a tribe. In the time of Romulus, a tribe consisted of ten curiae, or a thousand men; each curia being one hundred. That legislator made the first division of his people into thirty curiae. Afterwards curia, or domus curialis, became used for the place where each curia held its assemblies. Hence also curia passed to the senate-house; and it is from hence the moderns came to use the word curia, "court," for a place of justice, and for the judges, &c., there assembled.

Varro derives the word from cura, "care," q. d. an assembly of people charged with the care of public affairs. Others deduce it from the Greeks; maintaining, that at Athens they called sagres the place where the magistrate held his assizes, and the people used to assemble; sagres, again, may come from xevres, authority, power; because it was here the laws were made.

in our ancient customs.—It was usual for the kings of England to summon the bishops, peers, and great men of the kingdom to some particular place, at the chief festivals in the year; and this assembly is called by our historians curia; because there they consulted about the weighty affairs of the nation; whence it was sometimes also called solemnis curia, generalis curia, augustalis, and curia publica, &c. See WITNESS-Mot.

CURIA Borenum. See COURT-BARON.

CURIA Claudiana is a writ that lies against him who should fence and inclose the ground, but refuses or defers to do it.