Curtia gens

The gens Curtia was an ancient but minor noble family at Rome, with both patrician and plebeian branches.

Pursued by the Romans, Curtius' horse was frightened by the shouting and plunged into the swamps, becoming mired in shallow water.

Curtius' narrow escape is depicted on a relief, excavated in 1553 between the Column of Phocas and the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which seems to be a copy of an original dating perhaps to the 2nd century BC.

In one account, the ground in the Forum gave way, and a youth named Marcus Curtius sacrificed himself by leaping in, fully armed and mounted on horseback, in order to fulfill a prophecy claiming that the chasm could be closed only by sacrificing that upon which Rome's future greatness would rest.

The third legend states that the spot had been struck by lightning, and that on the Senate's orders, it was enclosed by the consul Gaius Curtius Philo.