Expert: Maria - 4/25/2010

Question
I am traveling to Rome on vacation and would like to find the spot that Caesar was assassinated.  I know that the Theater of Pompey has largely been lost to modern (and not so modern) building - but is the exact, or close to the exact, spot known?

If so where can I find this spot?

Thank you so much Maria!
Jeremiah
Philadelphia, PA, USA

Answer
Hello,

First of all either  Suetonius in his ‘Life of Caesar, chapter 80-81 or Cicero in“De divinatione" (On Divination), book  II, chapter 23  as well as Plutarch in his ‘Life of Caesar’, chapter 61,  say that Caesar was murdered in the “Curia Pompeiana”  (Latin for “the meeting room  at the Theatre of Pompey) “in which the senate was then assembled, since it contained a statue of Pompey and had been dedicated by Pompey as an additional ornament to his theatre”, as we read in Plutarch, while Suetonius says:“But after public notice had been given by proclamation for the senate to assemble upon the Ides of March in the senate-house built by Pompey”(“postquam senatus Idibus Martiis in Pompei curiam edictus est”).

Therefore it is true that Caesar was stabbed 23 times  at the foot of the pedestal on which Pompey's statue stood in the curia ( a meeting-place for the Senate) at Pompey's Theater, the first stone (non-wooden )theatre in Rome  built by Pompey between 61 BC and 55 BC in the ancient Campus Martius (Field of Mars), a floodplain of the Tiber River, originally used primarily as a military exercise ground, between the Capitol on the south side, the Via Lata and Flaminia in the west, and the Tiber on the east side. The statue of Pompeius  that stood in the exedra of  Pompey's Theater  was later removed by Augustus, who walled up the curia as a ‘locus sceleratus’ (Suetonius,Life of Caesar, 88), i.e. “an infamous place”.


As for the today location of the Theatre of Pompey, which “has largely been lost to modern (and not so modern) building”, as you say, most of the curia, which was  closed by Augustus after the assassination of Julius Cæsar in it, is covered by later buildings and streets, though the shape of the theatre is still distinguishable in an aerial view, as  buildings were often built directly on top of the theatre's original foundations from the curved seating and then had resulted in several curved buildings and streets.
The outline of  the theater’s cavea , i.e. the semicircular, tiered seating area of Pompey’s  theater,can be in fact recognized still today  in the buildings of 'Vicolo di Grotta Pinta', as you can see at:http://www.info.roma.it/strade_dettaglio.asp?ID_indirizzi=805 where you must zoom on the A to view the curved buildings which follow the form of Pompey's Theater cavea .


So, to find this spot you must go to 'Largo di Torre Argentina' which is a square in Rome, that hosts four Republican Roman temples and the remains of Pompey's Theater, just in the ancient Campus Martius.
It is there that in fact the archeological investigation brought to light the presence of a holy area, dating to the Republican Era, with these four temples and part of Pompey's Theater, where Julius Caesar was killed.


For Largo Argentina and Pompey's Theater see at:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Roma_Plan.jpg

For a reconstruction of part of the 'Forma Urbis' with cavea of Pompey's theater shown see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mapancientformaurbisromae.jpg

The Forma Urbis Romae or Severan Marble Plan is a massive marble map of ancient Rome, created under the emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 211 AD.

Have a good stay in Rome,
Maria