He even took a queen as his mistress, Cleopatra of Egypt. Now, Caesar was Rome’s first dictator for life-a king in all but name. In practice, Rome teetered for decades on the brink of military dictatorship. In theory, Rome was a constitutional republic. Many Romans feared the power that Caesar amassed. Why, then, did Decimus raise a dagger against Caesar only nine months later? After more than four years of hard fighting, Caesar returned to Rome triumphant in 45 B.C., with Decimus at his side. A grateful Caesar named Decimus acting governor of Gaul while Caesar went off to challenge his enemies elsewhere. Once again, Decimus won a victory at sea, this time on Gaul’s Mediterranean coast. It was civil war and Decimus chose Caesar. Later, his enemies in the Roman senate tried to strip Caesar of power but he fought back. Julius Caesar laying siege to Alesia, Gaul, 52 BC. Decimus won an important naval battle off Brittany and served with Caesar in the siege at Alesia (in today’s Burgundy) that sealed Rome’s victory in Gaul. In his mid-twenties Decimus joined Caesar’s forces that were fighting to add Gaul (roughly, France and Belgium) to Rome’s empire. “I waged war against the most warlike peoples, captured many strongholds and destroyed many places.” He did all that, he wrote, to impress his men, to serve the public, and to advance his reputation.ĭecimus warmed to Caesar, a great commander and a war hero to boot. “My soldiers have experienced my generosity and my courage,” Decimus wrote.
Then Caesar came along and offered Decimus the chance to restore his house’s name.ĭecimus was a soldier at heart, educated but rough and ambitious, as his surviving correspondence shows. But Decimus’s father had a mediocre career and his mother dabbled in revolution. His grandfather extended Rome’s rule to the Atlantic, in Spain. The excavations started by Ada’s father helped to pinpoint the exact location of the theater complex and confirm the general area where Caesar was slain.Decimus belonged to the Roman nobility, the narrow elite that ruled both Rome and an empire of tens of millions of people.
It had long been known that the ruins of Pompey’s theater lay somewhere in the vicinity, but its precise location was unknown. More importantly, in 1949, Ada's father hired a local architect and archaeologist to supervise the excavation of the space beneath the restaurant. It was Ada's grandfather who had started the restaurant. She can be found there, day in and day out, supervising the operation and chatting with guests. Today, the restaurant is run by an elderly Roman woman named Ada Macchioli. It’s believed he is especially protective of this area of Rome. Pictures and small statues of Pancras are often found in Roman bars and restaurants. Pancras is considered the patron saint of children, health and jobs. A skull, reputed to have been that of Pancras, is kept in the church's reliquary.
Pancras was later built over the catacombs. His body was buried about a mile away from where the restaurant now sits-in the catacombs that still bear his name-on the ancient Via Aurelia. Saint Pancras was a Roman citizen who had converted to Christianity and who had been martyred in 304 AD, on orders from the emperor Domitian. Its name, da Pancrazio, is Italian for Pancras. It's 1922, the Macchioli family of Rome acquires a small trattoria in the Piazza de Biscione and proceeds to replace it with a new, larger restaurant. Now fast forward a couple of thousand years.
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