sella curulis

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A curule seat is a design of a (usually) foldable and transportable chair noted for its uses in Ancient Rome and Europe through to the 20th century. Its status in early Rome as a symbol of political or military power carried over to other civilizations, as it was also used in this regard by kings in Europe, Napoleon, and others.

In the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the curule chair (sella curulis, supposedly from currus, "chariot") was the seat upon which magistrates holding imperium were entitled to sit. This includes dictators, magistri equitum, consuls, praetors, curule aediles, and the promagistrates, temporary or de facto holders of such offices. Additionally, the censors and the flamen of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) were also allowed to sit on a curule seat, though these positions did not hold imperium. Livy writes that the three flamines maiores or high priests of the Archaic Triad of major gods were each granted the honor of the curule chair.

According to Livy the curule seat, like the Roman toga, originated in Etruria, and it has been used on surviving Etruscan monuments to identify magistrates. However, much earlier stools supported on a cross-frame are known from the New Kingdom of Egypt. One of the earliest recorded examples of the curule chair proper was in 494 BC when the honour of a curule chair in the circus maximus was awarded to the Roman dictator Manius Valerius Maximus as a result of his victory over the Sabines. According to Cassius Dio, early in 44 BC a senate decree granted Julius Caesar the curule seat everywhere except in the theatre, where his gilded chair and jeweled crown were carried in, putting him on a par with the gods. As a form of throne, the sella might be given as an honor to foreign kings recognized formally as allies by the Roman people or Senate. The curule chair is also used on Roman medals as well as funerary monuments to express a curule magistracy; when traversed by a hasta, it is the symbol of Juno.

In Rome, 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. Although often of luxurious construction, this chair was meant to be uncomfortable to sit on for long periods of time, the double symbolism being that the official was expected to carry out his public function in an efficient and timely manner, and that his office, being an office of the republic, was temporary, not perennial. The chair could be folded, and thus was easily transportable; this accords with its original function for magisterial and promagisterial commanders in the field. It 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. 6th-century consular ivory diptychs of Orestes and of Constantinus each depict the consul seated on an elaborate curule seat with crossed animal legs.