Was Julius Caesar killed in the Roman Forum or near the theater of Marcellus?

Answer 1

Understand that the Senate was in a different location than the Roman Forum. There is some dispute about whether it was near Piazza Navona or on the other side of the Tiber in what is currently called Trastevere. Can anyone be more specific than this?

Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Theater of P:ompey, where the Roman Senate was meeting temporarily while the old Senate House (a.k.a. "Curia") in the Roman Forum was being reconstructed under his orders as Dictator. That's why the surviving Senate House in the Forum is called the Curia Julia -- it's the one that Julius Caesar founded and it was completed by his nephew/heir Octavian Caesar (later the Emperor Augustus) after he consolidated his power following the assassination and subsequent Civil War. Very cool that it has survived to this day, relatively intact. See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curia_Julia

As for the Theater of Pompey, history was not kind. Parts of it survive, at least, and it it incorporated into the apartment and retail buildings that have grown up around it, and literally inside of it, in today's Rome. There is actually a restaurant built into one of its alcoves. It's located off the Campo Di Fiori, somewhat near the Piazza Navonna, in central Rome. Some good photos here: http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_geary_rome.htm