Of cats and Caesars

Sitting amongst the ruins of the former Curia Pompeia in the middle of historic Rome, just a five minute walk from the Pantheon, is a cat sanctuary.  Named Largo di Torre Argentina, it is the spot where, over two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar was assassinated.  

Cat lovers from all over the world who travel to Rome ensure they make time in their schedules to visit the sanctuary.  

Though they are surrounded by history in the form of the fallen architecture scattered throughout the ruins, few vistors to the site are aware that, in Largo di Torre Argentina, the past is very much alive.

When Julius Caesar was killed by over five dozen senators and their co-conspirators in 44 B.C., the blood of the Roman leader flowed down the steps of the Senate onto the cobblestones of the Curia Pompeia.  The goddess Venus, from whom Caesar had claimed a direct divine descendancy through her son Aeneas (who had survived the fall of Troy and escaped to Italy in the aftermath), was so shocked and furious at her representative on Earth being felled in his prime that she decreed tearfully he would live forevermore. 

Immediately appearing in the middle of the mob and presenting herself on Earth as a grizzled, blind soothsayer, she proclaimed that the first person (assassins not included) to get her descendant's blood on their hands would be granted eternal life.  With that, a melee ensued amongst the populace in a rush to get up the steps of the senate, which had been cordoned off almost immediately by the legionnaires as Marcus Antonius seized control of the sudden vacuum of power.

Unseen in all the commotion, a stray kitten (one of many running loose in the city at the time) happened upon the scene.  Being thirsty as well as hungry, he began lapping up the blood of the recently deceased dictator, which had pooled into a puddle adjacent to a drainage trough.  In that instant, the soul of Julius Caesar, his eternal spirit, passed into the body of the tiny cat.

From that day forward, Rome has been watched over by the former ruler of the Empire.  From Caesar to cat, from fascist to feline, and from autocrat to animal.  When it is time for the tiny four-legged frame he inhabits to shuffle off its mortal coil and cross that rainbow bridge over the Rubicon, he finds himself waking up in the body of the youngest feline on the premises.  He travels all throughout town, keeping a watchful eye on the citizens of his city, but always returns to the place of his demise and rebirth.

So, fellow travellers, the next time you're in Rome, look past the models in their fancy clothes, the priests and their religious icons, and the children and their colourful balloons.  Look close, and you may even see a former Roman emperor grooming himself in the shade, intermittently plunging his face into a bowl of freshly opened canned tuna!

Et tu Brute?:  Could this little guy be Julius Caesar?

Note:  I wanted to do a work of fiction today, using three keywords given to me by my wife:  kitten, balloons, and rainbow bridge.  This is what I came up with, in roughly an hour and a half.  It's rough, but it's writing, and right now for me, that's what counts.  Quality can come later.