Thanks to funding from the luxury jewelry brand Bulgari, tourists can now visit an ancient temple complex in Rome, including the site of Julius Caesar’s assassination.
Rome’s Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 20, officially opening the new attraction known as the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina.
The public can now visit the Area Sacra via newly built illuminated walkways that traverse what Claudio Parisi Presicce, the city’s capitol superintendent of cultural heritage, called “one of the best-preserved remains of the Roman Republic,″ according to AP News.
The ruins include four temples — referred to as A, B, C, and D — that appear to have been erected in honor of ancient Roman deities.
Temple C is the oldest, most likely built between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC, and is thought to have been devoted to Feronia, the goddess of fertility. Temple A, built in mid-3rd century B.C., is considered the Temple of Juturna, the goddess of fountains.
Temple D is the largest of the four and dates back to the 2nd century BC. It is presumed to be dedicated to the Lares Permarini, spirits believed to protect seafarers, though another hypothesis is that it was built in honor of the Nymphs.
Temple B dates back to around 111 B.C. and is most commonly associated with Fortuna, the goddess of luck, built to celebrate the Romans’ victory against ancient European tribe, the Cimbri.
Yet a major draw for tourists will likely be Pompey’s Curia, a meeting hall of the Roman senate where Caesar was famously stabbed to death by a group of conspirators on the Ides of March in 44 B.C.
“Rome is fascinating. Everywhere is so rich in Roman history and the Roman empire. But to be so close to where they say Caesar was murdered is really quite special,” Oliver Vandermeereh, a Belgian tourist, told the Guardian.
This rich history was unearthed in the late 1920s when Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the demolition of medieval structures in the city to make way for modernization. An accumulation of layers of urban development had seen the ancient structures buried several yards below current-day Rome’s street level.
Yet after its discovery, the Area Sacra fell into obscurity as a busy urban hub built up around it. In the past few decades, a colony of stray cats even took up residence among the ruins.
Yes, the cats are still there.
“I came here for the cats,” Marielena, a local student, told the Guardian. “We’ve lived nearby for two years and wondered if we’d ever see it finished. The job’s been done really well, which makes us happy.”
As Francesca Ferronetti, who works at the Area Sacra, told the Guardian, visitors’ most commonly asked question is “Where are the cats?” followed by “Where was Caesar killed?”
Tourists can visit the site every day except Mondays and major holidays between 9:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. for a general admission fee of 5 euros ($5.50).
