A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

3. C.ScriboniusCurio, a son of the former. In B. C. 100, when the seditious tribune L. Appuleius Saturninus was murdered, Curio was with the consuls. In B. C. 90, the year in which the Marsic war broke out, Curio was tribune of the people. He afterwards served in the army of Sulla during his war in Greece against Archelaus, the general of Mithridates, and when the city of Athens was taken, Curio besieged the tyrant Aristion in the acropolis. In B. C. 82 he was invested with the praetorship, and in 76 he was made consul together with Cn. Octavius. After the expiration of the consulship, he obtained Macedonia as his province, and carried on a war for three years in the north of his province against

the Dardanians and Moesians with great success. He was the first Roman general who advanced in those regions as far as the river Danube, and on his return to Rome in 71, he celebrated a triumph over the Dardanians. Curio appears to have henceforth remained at Rome, where he took an active part in all public affairs. He acted as an opponent of Julius Caesar, and was connected in intimate friendship with Cicero. When the punishment of the Catilinarian conspirators was discussed in the senate, Curio also spoke, and afterwards expressed his satisfaction with Cicero's measures. In the trial of P. Clodius, for having violated the sacra of the Bona Dea, Curio spoke in favour of Clodius, probably out of enmity towards Caesar; and Cicero on that occasion attacked both Clodius and Curio most vehemently in a speech of which considerable fragments are still extant. This event, however, does not appear to have at all interrupted their personal friendship, for Cicero speaks well of him as a mall on all occasions; he says, that he was one of the good men of the time, and that he was always opposed to bad citizens. In B. C. 57 Curio was appointed pontifex maximus; he died four years later, B. C. 53.