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 Pompeia, by Pompey the Great.

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

Curia, 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. The first division of his people made by that legislator was into thirty curiae. But afterwards curia, or domus curialis, came to be used for the place where each curia held its assemblies. Hence curia passed to the senate-house; and hence also the moderns came to use the word curia for a place of justice, and the judges therein assembled.