Note 31 — Chapter I · ROME UNDER THE KINGS.
Reading edition
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 35. Attempts have been made to explain in different ways the origin of the word curia. Some have derived it from the word curare, or from the name of the town of Cures, or from κὑριος, “a lord:” it seems more natural to trace it to quiris (curis), which had the signification of a lance (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 48.—Plutarch, Romulus, for thus we obtain a term analogous with that of the Middle Ages, where spear signified a man-at-arms, accompanied by six or eight armed followers. And as the principal aim of the formation of the curia was to furnish a certain number of armed citizens, it is possible that they may have given to the whole the name of a part. We read in Ovid, Fasti, II. lines 477-480:—
“Sive quod hasta curis priscis est dicta Sabinis, Bellicus a telo venit in astra deus: Sive suo regi nomen posuere Quirites, Seu quis Romanis junxerat ille Cures.”