The Area Sacra of Caesar and the Cats of Rome

Today this area is an abode of cats; stay there like if they were the owners of that place, they play or rest among the ruins of Campo Marzio and all of them seem to be perfectly at ease and protected.

A few meters up, in the meantime, life runs fast. Largo di Torre Argentina in Rome is plenty of passers, cars, trams and work in progress. The library that overlooks the square is in constant activity. But what takes place few span up their heads, does not seem to interest the feline colony of the Area Sacra.

This site is one of the most ignored in Rome by tourists.

The reaction in front of what, at first sight, seems no more than a hole stuffed up of ruins in the middle of the square, is always the same. Distrust, a quick look and go, towards other more understandable destinations. Then once you discover the event that makes this place important, the level of attention increases , maps in hand, to identify the structures that had to be there in ancient Rome, instead of those four stones and flaky columns that you see today. Reveal the mystery then:

In the cats lair of Largo di Torre Argentina, the March 15th of 44 BC Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated, it was made by a group of about sixty senators, they considered themselves the guardians and defenders of the republican tradition, they were opposed to any form of personal power. So, fearing that Caesar wanted to become king of Rome (unthinkable concept for Romans), decided it was the time to get rid of the dictator.

At about eleven o'clock in the morning, Caesar left the house and after the ordinary religious practices he got in the Curia. He went to sit unaware to his seat where he was immediately surrounded from the plotters which acted to ask him favors and graces. At the agreed signal, Publius Servilius Casca Longo unsheathe the dagger and struck Caesar at the neck, causing a superficial and non-fatal wound. Caeser tried to defend himself with the stylus in his hand, then all the plotters now around Caesar fling with daggers against their target; Caesar in vain tried to dodge the stab. but when he understood to be surrounded and he even saw Brutus (his son) going against him, covered his head with the toga, he passed over, pierced by twenty-three stab. Caesar had 56 years. The first Emperor of Rome, one of the most important and influential of the history; and his murder happened exactly here.

Today the district is called "Pigna", exactly in Largo di Torre Argentina; is right here where is consumed the most ancient and famous attack in ancient history. It was an important place of that time, area of thermal baths, majestic colonnades, leading religious area and especially political.

Centuries later, on this cultural esplanade passed years of hight-quality limestone activity, producing with bas-reliefs and columns layers of medieval buildings.

In 1926, Mussolini sent in this area some pickmen with the aim of breaking down the medieval structures and erect buildings able to accept the new leader class. The plan was never carried out, because under the blows of the pickaxes, came out the Area Sacra of Caeser, just, whose discovery had even touched the Fascist dictator.
Three years after that place was already territory of cats which, after all, they did not matter at all about the leader tears and nor about the stab inflicted to another leader two thousand years earlier.

Since then, the cats took possession of the place and of all the memories connected to it, becoming the major tourist attraction of the square.