Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

---

Curūlis Magistrātus

The name given to a class of magistracies which conferred the privilege of using the sella curulis, or chair of state. This was anciently made of ivory, or, at least, adorned with it. The magistrates who enjoyed this privilege were the dictator, consuls, praetor, censors, and curule aediles. They sat on this chair in their tribunals on all solemn occasions. Those commanders who triumphed had it with them in their chariots. Persons whose ancestors, or themselves, had borne any curule office, were called nobiles and had the ius imaginum. They who were the first of the family that had raised themselves to any curule office were called homines novi, “new men.” As regards the origin of the term curulis, Festus deduces it from currus, “a chariot,” and says that “curule magistrates” were so called because borne along in chariots; but see Quirites.