Rome - Random Ruins - NOT

Roman temples in the middle of Rome

Important Addendum: Today while touring the Colosseum and Forum with our guide Rosella, we were informed that the "random ruin" we had stumbled upon and pictured above, is less random than we had thought.  In fact, this is the site of the Ides of March.  This is where Brutus and 24 co-conspirators stabbed Caesar to death on March 15 in the year 44.  The actual location of the assassination is under the street in front of me in the photo!  Rosella, with resigned exasperation, told us the Italian government had not managed to finish the excavations.

Another interruption to my travelogue.  We happened across this ongoing excavation while returning from a  trip to the Vatican.  It's the site of four ancient Roman temples that were excavated starting in the 1940s up through 2013. The project is called Largo Argentina, but has nothing to do with the South American country.  The rather cryptic sign board informed me the site once contained a palace owned by a Giovanni Burcardo, a native "Argentoratum," and hence the name. These temples sat under a block of buildings from the Middle Ages that had been demolished.  Mussolini himself interceded on behalf of the architect when they were discovered. So now here they are, amidst the every day hustle of Rome.  The site is fenced off for humans, but a clutter of feral cats was making themselves at home, sunning themselves on the grass between marble columns.  [Additional addendum: Rosella told us a nice old Italian lady takes care of the cats.]