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Publius Curiatius Fistus Trigeminus was a Roman politician in the 5th century BC, consul in 453 BC and decemvir in 451 BC.

Family

He was named Publius Curiatius by Livy, but named Publius Horatius by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Diodorus Siculus calls him only Trigeminus. He could have been part of the gens Horatii rather than the Curiatii, two gentes that had opposed each other during the Roman monarchy in the fight of the Horatii and the Curiatii.

If he was part of the gens Curiatii, he was the only member of the family to become consul.

Biography

Consulship

In 453 BC, he was consul with Sextus Quinctilius Varus. Rome was ravaged in that year by a famine and an epidemic, which killed animals as well as people. It is thought to have been typhus, with the epidemic continuing on for ten or more years. His colleague, Varus, and Furius Medullinus Fusus, the consul suffect who replaced him, both died of the disease that same year.

Decemvirate

In 451 BC, he was part of the First Decemvirate which wrote the ten first tables of the Law of the Twelve Tables.

References

1. Robert Maxwell Ogilvie, Commentary on Livy, books 1–5, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965, pp. 404, 405.
2. Livy, Ab Urbe condita, III, 2, 31.
3. Broughton 1951, p. 44.
4. ^ Broughton 1951, p. 43.
5. Livy, III. 32
6. Livy, Ab urbe condita, III. 33-34
7. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, X. 56
8. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, XII. 9

Bibliography

Ancient bibliography

• Livy, Ab urbe condita
• (in French) Diodorus Siculus, Universal History, Book XII, 9 on the site Philippe Remacle
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book X, 1-16, and Book X, 45-63 at LacusCurtius

Modern bibliography

• Broughton, T. Robert S. (1951), "The Magistrates of the Roman Republic", Philological Monographs, number XV, volume I, vol. I, 509 B.C. - 100 B.C., New York: The American Philological Association

• 5th-century BC Roman consuls
• Ancient Roman decemvirs
• Curiatii