Julius Caesar was stabbed to death here, thirty paces from where you stand.
Last reviewed 22 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 1219 BC–1929
The short answer
Julius Caesar was assassinated on 15 March 44 BC at the Curia of Pompey, part of the Theatre of Pompey complex, on the ground now occupied by Largo di Torre Argentina in Rome. Roughly sixty senators, led by Brutus and Cassius, stabbed him about twenty-three times, an act that triggered civil war and hastened the end of the Roman Republic.
March 15, 44 BC
Senators stabbed Julius Caesar roughly twenty-three times
You are standing over the Curia of Pompey, the hall where the Roman Senate met that day. It was built into the back of Theatre of Pompey, a stage and portico complex just west of here. Julius Caesar had made himself dictator for life a few months earlier. He had stopped rising to greet senators. He had let a crowd call him king near the Forum and only half-joked about turning down a crown at a public festival.
That morning, a group of Roman senators decided he had to die. Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus led the plot. Roughly sixty men joined them, convinced Caesar meant to end the Republic for good. They cornered him during the Senate session, right where you are standing. Wikipedia's account of the killing puts the number of stab wounds at around twenty-three.
Killing him did not save the Republic. It broke it. Caesar's death triggered years of civil war between his avengers and his killers. Within two decades, his adopted heir Augustus held all the power Caesar had only reached for. The Senate kept meeting, but Rome had an emperor from then on.
Caesar died a few feet from where the theatre's cat sanctuary now feeds its strays.
3rd century BC to 100 BC
Four Republican temples stood here before Caesar died
Long before the murder, this ground was already crowded with gods. Temple B went up in 101 BC, built by a Roman general to thank Fortuna for a battle won against invading tribes. Beside it, an older shrine likely honored Feronia, a fertility goddess, with terracotta decoration dating back to the 290s or 280s BC. That makes it the oldest of the four temples still standing in the square, built two centuries before Caesar fell nearby.
A public latrine ran behind one of the temples, open and undivided, used by ordinary Romans walking through this stretch of the ancient Campus Martius. None of it was hidden or forgotten. It sat here, working, worshipped at, used, for centuries before anyone plotted a murder on top of it.
The temples vanished under a medieval town for over a thousand years. What brought them back?
850 to 1132
A medieval church rose inside the old temple
The temples did not stay uncovered. Sometime before 1132, a church went up inside Temple B, the small round shrine once dedicated to Juturna. Builders folded the old Roman colonnade straight into the church walls. Worshippers who came to pray there stood on stones set out three centuries before Caesar died a few steps away. The church was named San Nicola de Calcarario. Nobody tore the temple down to build it. They just built around what was already standing, the way this ground seems to keep doing.
The name Calcarario came from a fire nobody remembers today.
Medieval period
Workers burned ancient marble into lime for plaster
Calcarario means "of the lime kiln." Locals gave the church that name because of what they were doing to the ruins around it. For generations, workers gathered broken marble from the old temples and fed it into kilns, burning it down into lime. The lime became plaster, cement, fertilizer. The gods carved into that marble went into the walls of houses and the mortar between medieval stones. Nothing here was preserved on purpose. It was used up, piece by piece, the same way the temples had once been used for worship.
The stone that once held up a war goddess's temple ended its life as plaster on someone's wall.
1624 to 1790
A Flemish hospice sheltered over twenty-one thousand travellers
A short walk from the temples stood a hospice and chapel called San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi. Flemish Christians ran it. They sheltered pilgrims from home who had nowhere else to stay. Between 1624 and 1790 the brotherhood gave shelter to 21,213 people. Records name where they came from: Flanders, Artois, Namur, Hainaut. Many were poor. Some were freed galley slaves. The hospice took in the destitute of one small nation, one traveler at a time, for a hundred and sixty-six years.
January 1927
Mussolini's crews demolished the church covering the temples
The church built into Temple A did not last forever either. By the seventeenth century it had been rebuilt in Baroque style. It was renamed San Nicola dei Cesarini, after the noble family whose palace stood next door. The Carmelites took it over in 1847. Then in January 1927, demolition crews working under Mussolini's government tore it down. They were clearing a medieval neighborhood. They wanted to expose the Republican temples buried underneath. These were the same temples a general had built three centuries before Caesar was killed there. Workers found a medieval altar under the rubble. They found a semicircular crypt there too. Both were from the 1100s. Both were carefully recorded before they came out of the ground.
The temples stand open to the sky now, and cats sleep in the ruins where the church once stood.
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Prehistoric
1219–1015 BC
Samples from the Sant'Omobono excavation area, about 667 meters away, carry radiocarbon dates as old as 1219 to 1015 BC, among the oldest attested human presence anywhere near this ground.
Temples A, B, C, and D in the sacred area were built between the 6th and 1st centuries BC, with Temple B (Fortuna Huiusce Diei) dedicated around 101 BC by Quintus Lutatius Catulus.
On the Ides of March, 44 BC, around 60 senators led by Brutus and Cassius stabbed Julius Caesar about 23 times at the Curia of Pompey, inside the Theatre of Pompey, right where this square now stands.
The Baths of Agrippa, built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa around 25 BC, were the first great public baths in Rome and stood roughly 145 meters from here.
Built in 13 BC by Lucius Cornelius Balbus, likely funded from military spoils under Augustus, the theatre's exact location was debated for decades before excavations began in 1981.
First documented in 1132, a medieval church was constructed within Temple A of the sacred area, reusing the ancient temple thought dedicated to Juturna, with its colonnade still visible in the outer walls.
San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi has served since its founding as the national church in Rome for the people of the Southern Netherlands, later becoming Belgium's national church in 1830.
A poorly built 1611 reconstruction was replaced in 1695 with a new Baroque church, and the name changed from San Nicola de Calcarario to San Nicola dei Cesarini after the noble family whose palazzo stood next door.
The Teatro Argentina was constructed in 1731 and opened on 31 January 1732 with the opera Berenice, built directly over the curia section of the Theatre of Pompey where Caesar was killed.
A pair of 1887 photographs, taken about 70 meters from this spot, document the square and church before their 1927 demolition for the archaeological excavations.
Starting in January 1927, the 17th-century Church of San Nicola dei Cesarini was demolished as part of Fascist-era clearances between 1926 and 1929 meant to expose the Republican temples underneath.
When workers tore down the church in 1928, they uncovered a medieval altar and a semicircular crypt beneath it, dated to the 12th century and carefully documented before removal.
A photograph taken in 1928, about 18 meters from here, shows the archaeological dig underway that uncovered the Republican temples after the church's demolition.
Julius Caesar was assassinated there on 15 March 44 BC, stabbed roughly twenty-three times by a group of around sixty senators led by Brutus and Cassius, inside the Curia of Pompey, part of the Theatre of Pompey complex.
What was here before the assassination site was excavated?
Before the Republican temples were exposed, the ground was covered by a medieval neighbourhood, including a church, San Nicola de Calcarario, later rebuilt in Baroque style and renamed San Nicola dei Cesarini, which stood there until its demolition in 1927.
How many temples are in the square?
Four Republican-era temples, labelled A, B, C and D, were built between the 6th and 1st centuries BC, with Temple B dedicated around 101 BC to Fortuna Huiusce Diei by the general Quintus Lutatius Catulus.
Why was the church at the site torn down?
Demolition crews working under Mussolini's government tore down the church of San Nicola dei Cesarini starting in January 1927 as part of clearances meant to expose the Republican temples buried beneath the medieval neighbourhood.
What does the name Calcarario mean?
Calcarario means 'of the lime kiln,' a name given to the medieval church because workers for generations burned broken marble from the surrounding Roman temples in kilns to produce lime for plaster, cement and fertiliser.
What was found when the church was demolished?
Workers who tore down the church in 1928 found a medieval altar and a semicircular crypt beneath it, both dated to the twelfth century, and both were carefully documented before being removed.