ROME — For nearly a century, only cats were allowed free rein at an ancient archaeological site in central Rome. Human tourists could only gather along the balustrades above, phones and cameras in hand.
But as of June 20, people have for the first time been allowed to descend and get a better view of the site, which is believed to be where Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of Senators in 44 BC. in an area with four temples, rare remains of the Roman Republic, dating from the 4th to 1st centuries BC
The entire site, the Sacred Area of Largo di Torre Argentina, is the most recent addition to Rome’s rich archaeological offering. At the inauguration, Roberto Gualtieri, Mayor of the City, said that the site would add “tremendous value to a City that never ceases to amaze with its treasures and wonders.”
There is no X marking the place where Caesar met his bloody end, as tradition and Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” says. The place contains only a jumble of limestone rocks, bricks, and shoots of grass.
Visitors “may have a hard time imagining this, because Shakespeare’s drama makes you think the murder was in the forum,” said archaeologist Monica Ceci, who oversees the site. In reality, Caesar was assassinated in Pompey’s Curia, a room where the Senate of Rome occasionally met. Later, the Emperor Augustus declared it a “locus sceleratus” or “cursed place”, and it was walled up.
But Shakespeare “could get away with” some artistic license, Ceci said.
On the opposite side of the site, marble decorations and sculptures, stored for decades in warehouses, are displayed in a long hall below the street.
“It’s amazing, you get a sense of ancient times here,” said Irina Lumsden, a data engineer from Melbourne, Australia. “They have done a great job conserving the site.”
The four temples have been tentatively identified, although there is still academic debate: the Temple of Juturna, in honor of a goddess of fountains, wells and springs, from the mid-3rd century BC; the Temple of Fortune Huiusce Diei, or Fortune of the Present, built in the 2nd century BC; the Temple of Feronia, goddess of fertility, built in the 4th century BC; and the Temple of Lares Permarini, dedicated to the protectors of navigation, or according to others to the Nymphs, and built at the beginning of the 2nd century BC.
Pompey’s Curia was erected in the 1st century BC
After a fire devastated this part of Rome in AD 80, the Emperor Domitian restored the temples and a travertine slab floor, still visible, was built over the surrounding rubble.
The area underwent further transformations, remaining buried until rediscovered during excavations from 1926 to 1929, when the plaza was being demolished for new buildings. City officials understood the value of the find, and the site was closed, to be admired only from above.
Monica Baraschi, a volunteer at a cat sanctuary that adjoins the site, said even the feline residents — there were 86, she said — would benefit. “They will be pampered — the cats will be happy,” she said.
Sandro Lubattelli and his wife, Rossana Cipressi, both retired, said they had looked down on the site all their lives and were delighted to finally get inside. “We always wonder why it was closed,” Lubattelli said.
By: ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6785005, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-30 15:50:08
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