Largo di Torre Argentina

Several metres below the traffic lies a rectangle of ruins full of columns, cats and a story worthy of a crime novel. From 1926 onwards, while a neighbourhood was being demolished to open up the square, four temples from the Republican era came to light. Since no one knew for sure which gods they were dedicated to, archaeologists simply labelled them with letters: A, B, C and D.

1The scene of the Ides of March

At the back, behind temples B and C, are remains of the Curia of Pompey, the hall where the Senate was meeting on 15 March 44 BC. There, at the foot of a statue of Pompey, Julius Caesar was stabbed twenty-three times, according to Suetonius. After the murder the hall was walled up and the anniversary was branded an unlucky day.

Where exactly did Caesar fall? Nobody knows for certain. In 2012 a team from Spain's CSIC research council suggested that a concrete structure found in the Curia was a monument put up on Augustus's orders to condemn the scene of the crime. It is an intriguing interpretation, not a certainty.

2Guardians of the ruins

Since 1993 a cat shelter has operated here, beside Temple D, and the cats stroll among the columns as if they owned the place. Since 2023 the site can be explored on walkways. And the name has nothing to do with the South American country: it comes from the tower of Johannes Burckard, a papal master of ceremonies born in Strasbourg, Argentoratum in Latin, who signed himself «Argentinus».

3What to look for

• Temple B, the round one, with six columns still standing.
• The remains on the west side, behind temples B and C, which belong to the Curia of Pompey.
• The cats, near the steps down to the shelter, at the corner of Via Florida.