Listen well, citizens, to a tale carved in the very stones of the Forum!

It was in the days when the Republic still wore the garland of youth. Suddenly, the earth shook and roared like a beast in rage. The Forum split asunder, and a monstrous chasm yawned wide, swallowing marble and men alike. Priests brought victims, the augurs read the skies, but the gulf mocked all offerings—it would not close.

Then the Sibyl’s voice was sought, and her riddle came:
"Romans, the gulf shall close when you cast into it that which makes your people strong!"
The people murmured: What is it that Rome prizes most? Gold? Iron? Statues of the gods? They heaped treasures into the abyss, but still it gaped like the throat of Tartarus.

Then came forth Marcus Curtius, a youth of noble blood, bright-eyed as Mars in armour. He cried:
"Romans! Is it gold that makes us strong? No! It is arms, courage, and the spirit that holds nothing dearer than the fatherland! If the gods demand our strength, then I give them mine!"

He mounted his warhorse, clad in gleaming bronze, his spear in hand. He looked to the sky and prayed:
"O Father Jupiter, O holy Vesta, witness my gift for Rome!"

And with that, he spurred his steed and leapt—man and horse plunging into the abyss. The earth groaned, the chasm closed with a thunderous roar, and the Forum was whole once more. Rome was saved by the blood of one man, who gave his life for the eternal city.

And so the spot was called the Lacus Curtius, and even now, in the Forum, its name whispers the glory of sacrifice—that Rome stands because Romans dare to die for her!