According to
Livy the
curule seat (
sella curulis, supposedly from
currus, "chariot"), like the
Roman toga, originated in
Etruria,
[2] and it has been used on surviving Etruscan monuments to identify magistrates,
[3] but much earlier stools supported on a cross-frame are known from the
New Kingdom of Egypt.
In the Roman Republic, and later the Empire, the curule seat was the chair upon which senior magistrates or promagistrates owning imperium were entitled to sit, including dictators, masters of the horse, consuls, praetors, censors, and the curule aediles. Additionally, the Flamen of Iuppiter (Flamen Dialis) was also allowed to sit on a sella curulis, though this position lacked imperium. According to Cassius Dio, early in 44 BCE a senate decree granted Julius Caesar the sella curulis everywhere except in the theatre, where his gilded chair and jeweled crown were carried in, putting him on a par with the gods.[4] As a form of throne, the sella might be given as an honor to foreign kings recognized formally as friend (amicus) by the Roman people or senate.[5]
The curule chair is used on Roman medals as well as funerary monuments to express a curule magistracy; when traversed by a hasta (spear), it is the symbol of Juno.
The curule chair was traditionally made of or veneered with ivory, with curved legs forming a wide X; it had no back, and low arms. The chair could be folded, and thus an easily transportable seat, originally for magisterial and promagisterial commanders in the field, developed a hieratic significance, expressed in fictive curule seats on funerary monuments, a symbol of power which was never entirely lost in post-Roman European tradition.[6] Sixth-century consular ivory diptychs of Orestes and of Constantinus each depict the consul seated on an elaborate curule seat with crossed animal legs.[7]
