Sella Curulis

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Sella Curulis. -- The curule chair was a seat of
dignity, of which the Romans, it is believed,
first adopted the use under king Tarquinius
Priscus, having borrowed it from the Etruscans,
from whom they copied many other customs
besides this, and on whose monuments a chair of
similar form often presents itself. Numa had
already granted it to the Flamen of Jupiter as a
mark of his pontificial office. It was made of,
or at least covered with, ivory, high and ornamented with engraved signs and figures, supported
on four carved feet, in form almost like
two pair of horse shoes, each pair placed inversely
one above the other, as is shown on several
family coins. -- After the change from monarchical
to republican government at Rome, the sella
curulis was appropriated, as a peculiar mark of
their high office, to dictators, consuls, praetors,
censors, ediles, and also to the prefect of the
city (prefectus urbis), who for that reason were
called curule magistrates. The pontiffs and the
vestals likewise had the right of the curule chair.
But neither the questores nor the tribunes were
honoured with a similar distinction. The high
magistrates endowed with the jus sellae curulis
were at liberty to have it carried with them
wherever they went, not only at home, but also
extra urbem, if sent on any military expedition,
or appointed to administer the government of any
province.
     Sella Curulis. -- On a denarius of the Cornelia
family appears a curule chair, between the lituus
and a garland ; with legend of SVLLA. COS. Q.
POMPEI. RVF. -- Rev. RVFVS. COS. Q. POMPEI.
Q. F. -- A curule chair, between an arrow and a
branch of laurel.
     This silver coin records the colleagueship of
the celebrated L. Cornelius Sulla and Q. Pompeius
Rufus, who made the processus consularis
together in the year of Rome 666. --In these
types the curule chair indicates the supreme
honour of the consulate enjoyed by Sulla ; the
lituus shows the augural dignity with which he
was also invested. The other attributes are of
doubtful signification. -- See Cornelia.
     On one denarius of the Lollia family we see a
laurel crown, and on one of the Norbana family
a helmet, placed on a curule chair. On another
the sella curulis is placed between two corn ears.
     The Sella Curulis appears on coins of the
Furia and other families, between two fasces,
with the secures. This is considered to indicate
the provincial praetorship of the individual, or
of the ancestor of the individual, BROCCHVS,
who, as monetal iiivir, struck the coin. On a
coin of the Livineia family, the curule chair
stands between six fasces without the secures,
viz., three on each side. -- This denarius, which
bears on its obverse the bare head of a man, was
struck by L. LIVINEIVS REGVLVS, who, as the
words PRAEF. VRB. intimates, was (according to
the opinion of Havercamp) one of the praefects
of the city, whom Julius Caesar, on going
into Spain, left at Rome, as Dion states, and
who assumed to himself the jus lictorum et
sella curulis. And the circumstances of the
fasces, wanting, in this instance, the secures (or
axes), serves to support the doctrine of Spanheim
that those edged tools were additions not tolerated
during the consular government as part of the
insignia of the Urban Praefects.
     The Sella Curulis appears on a denarius of
M. PLAETORIVS, whose office is also verbally
expressed by AED. CVR. Cicero himself has
commemorated (Pro A. Cluentio) the curule
edileship of that eminent magistrate.
     Sella aurea et corona. -- A curule chair of
gold and a crown were decreed by the senate to
honour the memory of Julius Caesar.
     In reference to this fact, a sella curulis, upon
which is a laurel crown, presents itself on a
silver coin, struck in honour of Julius after his
death by order of Octavianus, his adopted son
and heir, whose head (CAESAR IIIVIR. R. P. C.)
is on the obverse. (See Morell's Fam. Julia,
tab. 7). In this instance the curule chair itself
bears the inscription CAESAR DIC. PER. ; in
others there is EX. S. C. in the field. It was
doubtless the sella decreed among other honours
by the senate as related by Dion.
    (Duae) Sellae Curules. -- Rasche says that to
the above-mentioned ceremony of placing magisterial mementos of illustrious personages, even when absent or dead, in the theatres at Rome,
is to be referred the circumstance of two curule
chairs appearing on silver coins dedicated to
Vespasian and Titus after their death and consecration. But with this remark of the learned
lexicographer, I do not find any coin in Morell
or elsewhere to correspond. A gold coin bearing
a type of the same character, having a curule
chair with a laurel crown upon it, occurs in the
case of Titus, but struck during his lifetime, as
its inscription (TR. P. IX. IMP. XV. COS. VIII. P. P.)
manifestly shows. -- This custom, however, seems
to have been revived amongst the Romans from
the usages of the old republic, during which, at
funerals of illustrious men, the effigies of their
ancestors were placed in ivory chairs, such as
were the sellae curules. -- Seats of this kind were
placed in the theatres in honour not only of
deceased or absent emperors, but also of their
wives, as in the instance of Faustina, empress
of Antoninus Pius, or of their relations and
progeny, as in the case of Marcellus and Germanicus.
-- By degrees also it was ordered, that
not merely one chair of this sort was assigned to
one emperor, but out of greater reverence for
the defunct Augustus, several of them were in
this manner publicly dedicated, as in the case of
Pertinax, at whose death three sellae curules were
so appropriated. Spanheim, Pr. ii. p. 210. --
The same honours of the sella were sometimes
exhibited in temples to the Caesars.
     Sella curulis, supra quam fulmen. -- A curule
seat, with a thunderbolt upon it, appears on
gold and silver of Vespasian, inscribed IMP.
CAES. TRAIAN. etc., REST. -- It is well known
(says Vaillant) that the fulmen is a symbol of
imperial power, and we see it on this coin deposited
on the sella curulis in memory of the
consecrated Vespasian. This was also placed in
a temple as a sign of the highest respect for the
new deity, the remembrance of which honour
paid to so great a prince Trajan has here restored.
-- A similar restitution by the same emperor
is also extant, of which Titus's consecration
is in like manner the object of reverence.

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