E tu Brute? / Area Sacra dell'Argentina

One of only two trams in Rome stops pretty much right outside the studio here in Trastevere, and heads straight into Rome’s ‘historical centre’, near the Campo del Fiori, at the Largo di Argentina.

Once off the tram you virtually trip over the Area Sacra dell’Argentina, a wonderful set of ruins the size of a small city block – four Republican temples, fluted columns, non-descript blocks of marble, dating back to 300BC, and so some of the oldest in Rome – sunk about ten meters below the pavement, so that you lean over a set of railings and peer right into it.

This was the site of the original Senate, and, according to a guide book, of Julius Caesar’s assassination. Imagine it occurring on the steps in the photos below.

I’ve been here before, but there are a number of things of particular interest about the place.

Firstly: as I mentioned, Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back here by his buddy Brutus for getting too big for his boots. Having re-read the play last year, I distinctly remember the assassins (Brutus, Cassius et al) rushing to intercept him before he made it to the Forum, and I can now imagine the scene unfolding in this very place, about five minutes walk from said Forum.

Secondly: the excavation of this site was overseen by Mussolini; he actually rejected requests by developers to build over the site, opting instead to restore it. Apparently, at the opening of the newly excavated site, he remarked in typical fashion: “I should like to have brought to me here those who opposed this work, to have them shot on the spot.” Now I’m not one for Fascism, but there’s something admirable in this fierce riposte to over-zealous developers. (The source I’m taking this from suggests he didn’t mean this literally; but who knows.)

Finally, and more obviously, the ruins have in recent years become a kind of refuge for the city’s enormous stray cat population. In the late sixties there were apparently 784,000 of the furballs, though their population has drastically declined. Anyway, it’s quite a sight to see cats of all different colours, shapes and sizes cruising about, reclining, playing, fighting, play-fighting, pouncing, stalking etc through the ruins. Lovers mill along the rails, cooing, picking out favourites and wiling away entire hours.