Home › Glossary › Letter C

Curtius

Historical Figure
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Marcus Curtius, a legendary Roman youth who rode his horse into a gaping chasm to fulfill a prophecy and save Rome; a paradigm of self-sacrifice and heroic civic virtue, invoked in epic and patriotic verse.

Detailed Definition
Marcus Curtius, a legendary Roman hero, sacrificed himself for Rome’s salvation. In poetry, his leap symbolises self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion, and the ultimate triumph of courage over mortality.
Example
Example in poetry:
Curtius: Curtius’ leap into the abyss becomes poetic metaphor for self-sacrifice: “He rode into the chasm, cloaked in flame, / and called it duty, not a name.”; Poets use his act to question the cost of civic piety: “He gave his body to the earth, / and called it glory, not his worth.”; His leap becomes symbol of public performance: “They cheered his fall, they sang his name— / yet none would leap the same, the same.”; A poet might write, “He did not die to save the state, / but to prove he could seal his fate.”; Curtius teaches poets how ritual sacrifice masks existential dread: “The crowd forgot the man, the horse— / they only saw the plunge, the force.”; His legend becomes a warning: “Some leap to save, some leap to be seen— / the abyss remembers, but the world, unseen.”
Additional Notes
Curtius’ self-sacrifice to save Rome became a symbol of civic virtue in Latin poetry and later neoclassical odes; his legend, though possibly apocryphal, provided a model for heroic self-annihilation in verse, frequently invoked to contrast individual sacrifice with modern alienation or political apathy.
Also Known As
Marcus Curtius
Skip to main content