The battle has pitted preservation officials who struggle to get Italians to obey laws protecting their birthright against an especially feisty breed of cat caretakers - the so-called gattare.

In the middle are the cats, ancient inhabitants of Rome who have been declared "part of the city's bio-cultural patrimony," noted Monica Cirinna, a local lawmaker with the Democratic Party who created an animal rights advocacy department.

Rome has countless cat colonies, usually cared for by neighborhood gattare.

Then there are volunteer associations for larger colonies of feral cats, some in archaeological sites, including one at the Pyramid of Cestius, from the first century B.C., and another at Trajan's Market, where gattare have been given a room within. But they have official authorization.

The cat shelter does not, say the state archaeology officials, who are trying to close it two years after it made the apparently fatal mistake of applying for a permit to install a toilet. That put the shelter on the officials' radar.

The shelter, which cares for up to 180 cats at a time, is near the Area Sacra of Largo Argentina, a site consisting of Republican-era temples. It sits above the remains of the podium of what archaeologists identify as a structure from the second century B.C.

"The cat ladies are occupying one of the most important sites in Largo Argentina, and that is incompatible with the preservation of the monument," said Fedora Filippi, a Culture Ministry archaeologist.

Unless an alternative is found soon, the cat association will be evicted.

Umberto Broccoli, Rome's superintendent for culture, acknowledged that the situation was delicate. "The cats of Rome are by definition as ancient as the marble capitals they lounge on," he said.

Then cats have their own habits. "They don't read bans," he said. "They will return to Largo Argentina," whether the shelter is there or not.

The New York Times