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The Lacus Curtius is a mysterious hole in the ground in the Roman Forum, now small, more or less filled in and paved over with ancient stone, but once said to have been a widening chasm. It is not known what it represents, if anything; and this was already the case by the late Republican period.
It was, however, regarded with some veneration by the ancient Romans, and the story most often repeated is that told by Livy (vii.6): Rome, facing a peril which an oracle had stated would be overcome only when the City threw into the chasm what she held to be most dear, was saved by a young man named Curtius, who understood that it was the life of a brave Roman youth, and plunged into it on his horse, whereupon the earth closed over him and Rome was saved. The various stories all have resonances of the swampy ground on which the Roman Forum came to be, and of a propitiatory human sacrifice.
(See also LacusCurtius.)
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