Largo Argentina

The sunken ruins of Largo Argentina in Rome, Italy, where Julius Caesar met his assassins and now cats nestle like easter eggs amongst the tall grasses

Area Sacra di Largo Argentina
Largo del Torre Argentina/Via di San Nicola de Cesarini
tel. +39-06-060-608
Currently [perennially] closed

Viator.com tours
• Private Tour: Classical Rome Art History Walking Tour
Trastevere and Rome's Jewish Ghetto Half-Day Walking Tour

ReidsItaly.com Rome Map

» View ENLARGED MAP with all listings

TOURS FROM TRUSTED PARTNERS

Largo Argentina (Photo by benoitnewton)Today, Largo del Torre Argentina is largely known as the piazza where you frequently have to change buses, but set into its middle is an excavated zone sporting a trio of ancient temples, their columns poking up like broken teeth, their grassy foundations prowling with Rome's largest colony of stray cats, which legend holds contain the ghosts of ancient Romans.

The site has been opened to visitors only sporadically and rarely over the years; call ahead to check just in case you get lucky, but consider it permanently closed. (You can, however, nip into the cat sanctuary shelter halfway down one staircase to chat with the harried cat lovers who try to keep up with spaying and inoculating the feral felines.)

Still, you can see it all from the road, really.

Against the eastern edge of the excavations you can see the jumbled remains of some brick walls. This was the exit to Pompey's Theater and Baths complex, which the Roman Senate was using in the 1st century BC to hold their meetings while the main Senate house in the Forum was being rebuilt.

It was while exiting one of these meetings, on these very steps now covered in cats, that Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators fell upon Julius Caesar and stabbed him to death.

Et tu, Bruté?

Tips

Planning your day: This is a major bus stop, so chance are you'll pass through. just make sure you take 5 minutes to cross to the excavations in the center and peer over the fence at these ruins—all the more remarkable for the fact that they just sort of sit there, un-remarked upon (especially puzzling given that every 9th grader has read Julius Caesar, and here is the exact spot where he was killed! Why no one bothers pointing this out mystifies me to this day). In any other city, they'd be the sightseeing highlights in town. Here, they merely make a nice centerpiece to a traffic circle.
Book a tour: If you prefer a private guided tour that includes a visit to Largo Argentina, book one via our partner site Viator.com.

• Private Tour: Classical Rome Art History Walking Tour
• Trastevere and Rome's Jewish Ghetto Half-Day Walking Tour

ShareThis

Search ReidsItaly.com

This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

about | contact | faq

» THE REIDSITALY.COM DIFFERENCE «

Copyright © 2008–2011 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.

Largo Argentina

The sunken ruins of Largo Argentina in Rome, Italy, where Julius Caesar met his assassins and now cats nestle like easter eggs amongst the tall grasses

Tips

Related pages