Largo di Torre Argentina

Empire · Where Caesar Really Fell

On the Ides of March 44 BC, Caesar was stabbed in the Curia of Pompey’s Theatre, right here.

People assume Caesar died in the Roman Forum — but not so. He was killed in the "Curia of Pompey’s Theatre," which the Senate was borrowing at the time — here, in the sunken ruins of Largo Argentina. The irony of history: the senators struck at the foot of the statue of Pompey, Caesar’s lifelong rival. This unremarkable hollow is where "You too, Brutus?" truly echoed.

Sources：Plutarch, Life of Caesar　·　Modern archaeological identification of the Curia of Pompey's Theatre

↑ Because of the last layer：Precisely because this sacred precinct and its curia lay buried for a thousand years, the true scene of Caesar’s murder survives intact today.

Today · Rome’s Oldest Temples, and a Colony of Cats

Its four Republican temples are the oldest surviving in Rome — now watched over by a stray-cat rescue.

These ruins lie about six metres below street level, uncovered by chance during twentieth-century demolition, holding four temples from before Christ — among the oldest surviving in Rome. Undisturbed for years, colonies of stray cats made their home here, and it is now Rome’s famous "cat sanctuary," tended by volunteers. Two thousand years ago the fate of an empire turned here; two thousand years on, cats sun themselves on the same stones — this is Rome.

Sources：Documentation of the Largo di Torre Argentina archaeological area　·　Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary