OSTIA
Italy.
A city on the W coast at the
mouth of the Tiber. By tradition it was first settled by
Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, to supply Rome
with salt, but no such settlement has yet been found. The
earliest Ostia known to us was built ca. 350 B.C. some
200 m S of the Tiber near its mouth and occupied only
a little more than 2 ha, providing for some 300 families.
Its original function was to guard the coastline and the
river, and it was protected by strong walls of large tufa
blocks quarried near Fidenae. Within the walls, which
had four gates, the area was divided by narrow streets
in a grid pattern. The colony increased in importance
when Rome began to need imports from overseas, for
the river mouth had to serve as Rome's harbor. During
the wars against Carthage, Ostia also became an important naval base. In the 2d c. B.C. the growth of Rome's population increased the demand for imports from overseas, particularly grain. During the resulting increase of
population in Ostia to service the growing volume of
shipping the town expanded beyond its walls. By the
early 1st c. B.C. the small fort had become a substantial
town and the new walls that were then built enclosed
64 ha.
By now the main lines of the town plan were established. The centers of the original colony became the
forum of the enlarged town where the two main roads
crossed. The decumanus maximus continued in a straight
line E to the Porta Romana by which the Via Ostiensis
entered the town. To the W it forked a little W of the
colony's wall, the main branch proceeding to the seashore, the other (Via della Foce) to the river mouth.
The cardo maximus ran in a straight line to the river;
southwards it turned SE after leaving the forum. The
most important area for trade and commerce was the
land between the river and the decumanus—Via della
Foce, whose development was strictly controlled and reserved mainly for warehouses and public buildings. The
most attractive residential area was in the SW towards
the sea. The least impressive was the SE quarter which
shows little sign of considered planning.
Ostia was neglected in the late Republic, but felt the
benefit of Augustus' approach to social and economic
problems. The expansion of trade in the early Empire
showed that the river harbor was too restricted for the
shipping now needed to maintain Rome, and the larger
merchantmen could not negotiate the sand bar at the
river mouth.
About 3 km N of the Tiber mouth Claudius built a
large artificial harbor, and two canals were dug linking
the new harbor with the Tiber and thus with Rome. In
A.D. 62, however, 200 ships were sunk within the harbor
according to Tacitus: the expanse of shallow water was
too large to provide shelter except near the moles. It was
not until Trajan added a large hexagonal basin, excavated
from the land, that Rome's harbor problem was satisfactorily solved.
Though the new harbors were directly linked with
Rome they brought increased prosperity to Ostia for a
hundred years. The Ostian council and magistrates controlled the area, though imperial officials were responsible for the harbors themselves, and the majority of the harbor workers lived in Ostia. During the first half of
the 2d c. Ostia was transformed. Her population was
more than doubled, her housing was revolutionized and
her public buildings and amenities reflected the new prosperity. These dramatic developments were made possible
by the energy and initiative of Ostia's own citizens but
they were also encouraged and aided by the emperors
at Rome. Hadrian was almost certainly the emperor to
whom Ostia owed most. In an inscription of 133 he was
honored by the city “for having preserved it and enhanced it with all indulgence and generosity.” Nearly
half the Ostia we now see was built while Hadrian was
emperor and the new work is notable for the coherent
planning of large areas. Two of these building programs
probably derived from imperial initiative. The first
comes from the beginning of his reign and involved the
building of a series of large warehouses NW of the
forum, the remodeling on a more handsome scale of the
cardo between the forum and the river, and the building
of a new Capitolium to dominate the forum. The second,
on the N side of the W decumanus, comes from the last
years of Hadrian. At the center of this plan are two
large public buildings, to the N the barracks of the Vigiles, the fire-fighters detached from the cohorts at Rome,
and to the S of the barracks a large set of public baths,
handsomely appointed. An inscription records that Hadrian paid for the building and that his successor added
what was needed to complete the work after Hadrian's
death. On the E and W sides of these two buildings,
blocks of apartments and shops form part of the comprehensive plan.
The rebuilding of Ostia was needed to provide for a
sharply increasing population in an area restricted by the
town walls and the necropoleis lining the roads outside
the gates.
Ostian architects profited from the experience of
Rome's rebuilding after the great fire under Nero. There
had been changes in the use of building materials since
the Republic, when tufa had dominated. Buildings that
had to be either strong or impressive were then built with
large blocks of tufa; after concrete had been developed
in the 2d c. B.C., houses and secondary walls of public
buildings normally had a core of concrete faced with
small blocks of tufa, at first of irregular shape, opus
incertum, and by the end of the Republic of regular
squares set diagonally, opus reticulatum. Travertine from
the Tivoli quarries, stronger but more expensive, was
used economically; Italian marble was introduced on a
small scale under Augustus. By the 2d c. A.D. the brick
industry, based on the rich clay fields near Rome, was
competing successfully against tufa, at first in association
with large panels of small tufa blocks, opus mixtum, but
alone by the end of Hadrian's reign. Travertine was now
used in place of the cheaper tufa for columns and thresholds, and marble was freely used in public buildings—Italian marble for large surfaces, but a wide range of foreign marbles, from Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa
for columns and paneling.
The most interesting feature of the rebuilding of Ostia
is the type of housing adopted to meet the increase in
population. Down at least to Augustus there were still
many houses of Pompeian type with a series of rooms
surrounding an atrium, sometimes with a second set of
rooms surrounding a garden court, the peristyle. These
houses looked inward for their light, and could expand
only horizontally. With the increasing pressure on space
it was necessary to build high and the private house gave
way to the apartment block. These blocks had strong
walls and could have as many as five stories. Some were
purely residential, others combined shops on the ground
floor with apartments above. The shopkeeper often lived
in a mezzanine floor above his shop, reached by a staircase with its first treads in brick and the rest in wood;
for the other tenants of the block there were separate
staircases from the street. These multiple dwellings are
either built round an open court, drawing light from outside and inside, or they have no court and draw their light exclusively from outside. The apartments vary in size and elegance, but many of them conform to a common plan, in which the rooms open off a wide corridor-hall, replacing the atrium, with the two largest, for reception and dining, at either end and the secondary rooms
between. This plan is found with a varying number of
rooms and is used in the cheapest as well as the most
expensive blocks. In the better apartments the floors,
except in kitchen and latrine, were covered with mosaics,
usually in simple geometric patterns; figured scenes are
more rare. The poorer apartments had to be content with
herringbone pattern brick or
cocciopesto. The painting
on the walls is normally the work of house decorators
rather than artists and depended for its effect primarily
on contrasting masses of color.
The elevations of these blocks on the streets are plain
and effective. The brick is rarely concealed behind plaster
and there is no superfluous decoration. The main effect
comes from the size and spacing of the windows. Doorways framed by columns or pilasters and pediment add distinction without fuss to some blocks.
The revolution in private accommodation was accompanied by an impressive improvement in public building
and amenities. In the Republic the population had to
rely on wells. In the Early Empire an aqueduct was built
to bring a constant flow of water from the high ground
6.4 m to the E. The supply of water to private houses
was limited but public fountains, and cisterns were provided in the streets. The aqueduct also made possible the extension of bathing facilities. The proliferation of public baths in a harbor town is one of Ostia's most engaging
features. In the first half of the 2d c. A.D. three sets were
built which must have dwarfed their predecessors. The
bath by the seacoast outside the Porta Marina were
built under Trajan, the Baths of Neptune on the N side
of the E decumanus under Hadrian, and the forum baths
off the SE corner of the forum under Antoninus Pius.
From an inscription we know that the Baths of Neptune
were paid for by Hadrian and his successor; there are
also reasons for believing that the other two sets were
imperial benefactions. All three sets covered large areas
and were handsomely decorated with statues and fine
mosaics, and the forum baths heralded a change in architectural fashions, from rigidly rectangular planning to the
curving lines of apse, niche, and round temple. In addition to the three “imperial” baths, there were at least 14
smaller establishments.
The large number of public baths shows that a large
proportion of the population must have attended regularly. The theater on the other hand was small. The
original building under Augustus cannot have held more
than 3000, and when it was rebuilt and enlarged at the
end of the 2d c. there was room for not more than 4000.
It is probable that gladiators and wild beasts attracted
much larger audiences but no amphitheater has yet been
found. There may have been one S of the river.
To match the reconstruction in so many parts of the
town it was important to give more dignity to the civic
center. Hadrian was probably responsible for the building of a new Capitolium at the N end of the forum. In order to dominate the tall blocks in its neighborhood, the new temple was built on a high platform, approached
by a monumental marble stairway. The walls were originally lined with Italian marble, the fluted columns of its fronting portico were of pavonazetto marble from Asia Minor and the massive threshold stone of the wide
doorway was a single block of African marble weighing
some two tons. At the same time porticos were added
to the E and W side of the forum.
Before the imperial harbors were built, Ostia's primary
function was to provide the essential services for ships
carrying cargoes for Rome and storage capacity for
Rome's reserves. Ships up to ca. 150 tons could make the
passage to Rome by a combination of sail and oars, but
larger ships and especially ships carrying corn had to
unload at the harbor and their cargoes had to be transferred to smaller boats that could be towed up river. During the summer months the volume of shipping was so large that it would have been impossible to keep the
harbor open had it been necessary to send all cargoes
to Rome when they arrived. The imperial harbors eased
the problem but they did not ease the congestion on the
Tiber route to Rome, and the problem became more
acute when ships that had previously unloaded their
Roman cargoes at Puteoli now came to the imperial harbors. How much storage capacity was provided by the
Claudian harbor we do not know, but Trajan's harbor
was almost entirely surrounded by warehouses. Storage
capacity for Roman corn and perhaps other goods was
still needed at Ostia, for it is certain at least that the
number and capacity of horrea increased dramatically in
the 2d c. Earlier warehouses, to judge from surviving
evidence, were limited to a single floor; in the 2d c.
there were normally stairs to one or more upper stories.
The grandi horrea N of the W decumanus, near the
forum, which had been built under Claudius were completely remodeled shortly after the middle of the 2d c.
with stronger internal walls and stairways to additional
storage above. In another warehouse, W of the Piccolo
Mercato, only one wall was left, and the rest entirely
rebuilt. The new granaries marked an improvement on
the old, not only in their increased capacity, but by raising the floors on low brick walls to facilitate the circulation of air underneath.
Another type of warehouse can be recognized by large
earthenware jars sunk in the ground, dolia defossa. Four
such deposits can be seen and the largest, NE of the
forum, has more than 100 jars with a total capacity of
more than 84,000 liters. These jars contained oil or wine
and since Roman supplies would have been stored in
their containers we should regard the operators of these
horrea as Ostian wholesalers supplying local demand.
The most interesting illustration of Ostia's importance
to Rome is the double colonnade behind the theater, off
which in the 2d c. were 61 small rooms, many fronted
by mosaic designs, some accompanied by inscriptions. In
one an elephant with the legend, STAT(IO) SABRATENSIUM,
signifies that this was the office of the traders whose main
trade was in ivory from Sabratha in North Africa, for
which there was a brisk demand in Rome. Another mosaic, set up by the shippers and traders of Cagliari in
Sardinia, shows a merchantman between two grain
measures. The shippers of Narbonne show a merchantman approaching the famous lighthouse at the entrance
of the Claudian harbor. The rooms behind these mosaics,
too small for the sale of goods, were offices where representatives of overseas shippers and merchants, and also of Ostian business firms could take orders and supply information.
Ostia's main importance was the service she rendered
to Rome, but a considerable part of the labor force was
needed for the maintenance of Ostia herself. Her own
resources were limited. There was enough good land to
the S of the city and across the Tiber to produce all the
vegetables and fruit that were needed and there was
plenty of oak and ilex in the woodland to the S, but
grain, most building material, and the raw materials for
her industries had to come from outside. Most production seems to have been on a small scale, and it was common practice for goods to be sold from the premises on which they were made. The number of shops in Ostia
(over 800 are known) is one of the most striking features
of the town. They line nearly all the streets and even the
rich could not resist the economic attraction of using the
street front of their houses for shops. In the whole excavated area only two bakeries have been found; both are
very large. Most of the fullers' premises are small, but
one, which is built round an arcaded court, has three
big rinsing tanks in the court, sunken jars in the arcade
for dyeing, and fixtures in the brick piers for hanging
cloth. Some of the trades are illustrated in terracotta or
marble reliefs inserted over the entrance to a tomb to
show the occupation of the deceased. Probably the two
biggest employers were the building and the ship-building
industries.
Most of the main trades of Ostia had their guilds
which were primarily social institutions. They had their
own guild centers and elected a grand hierarchy of officials. The largest of them could afford to use expensive
sites. The builders' premises, for example, immediately
adjoined the forum on the S side of the E decumanus.
It is significant that five of the rooms on the ground
floor were permanently equipped as dining rooms with
stone couches on which the diners reclined.
Religious patterns in Ostia reflect the town's history.
The earliest established cults are those shared with the
early Roman Republic and they remain prominent in the
town plan. The greatest of them was the Capitolium. The
earliest surviving temple is dedicated to Hercules and was
built in the first half of the 1st c. B.C. on the N side of
the Via della Foce leading to the river mouth. A relief
found by the temple shows that this Hercules delivered
oracles and suggests that the archaic cult statue was
dredged from the sea. But the most important of the
colony's cults and the most deep-rooted was the cult of
Vulcan whose pontifex was the chief religious authority
in the town. The restoration of Vulcan's temple is recorded in an inscription but the temple has not yet been
found. Two temples of Bonn Dea, whose fertility cult
was reserved for women, have been excavated; both were
built in the imperial period but they continue a cult
which doubtless was established in the Republic. The
Ostian games of Castor and Pollux were celebrated by
magistrates from Rome and attracted distinguished entrants; a temple to the twins is recorded but not yet
identified. Other cults which are of Augustan origin or
earlier include those of Venus, Ceres, Fortune, and Hope.
Most of these cults were maintained in the Empire and
their temples were restored, but it was inevitable that a
population of such mixed origins as Ostia, including old
families of Roman stock, newcomers from other towns of
Italy, traders from overseas, slaves and ex-slaves from E
and W, should increasingly feel the influence of the oriental cults that spread so vigorously through the empire.
The cult of Kybele, the Phrygian Great Mother, was officially established at Rome towards the end of the 3d c.
and Ostia is likely to have followed the capital. In the
great rebuilding a large area by the walls near the Laurentine Gate was reserved for the goddess. In front of a
small tetrastyle temple there was a large triangular field,
flanked on its S side by a marble colonnade. This was
the scene of the taurobolium in which a bull was sacrificed in honor of the goddess, and blessings were invoked
for the emperor and the Roman senate and for the magistrates and council of Ostia. At the E end of the area
was a temple for the associated cult of Bellona, and a
guild house for the hastiferi who performed ritual dances
in her honor; nearby was a shrine of Attis, Kybele's consort. Towards the W end of the town a temple was built,
also under Hadrian, to Egyptian Serapis and inscriptions
record a Temple of Isis and her priestesses. The discovery of a large and handsome synagogue near the seashore
shows that in the Empire there was a strong Jewish community in Ostia. But the cult which has left the most
widespread evidence is Mithraism. No less than 15 shrines
of Mithras, none very large and some very small, can
still be seen, built between the middle of the 2d c. A.D.
and the end of the 3d. Mithraism seems to have made
little or no impact on the ruling classes at Ostia, but it
had wide appeal among the common people. During the
3d c., however, it found an increasingly strong rival in
Christianity.
The archaeological evidence for Christianity in Ostia
before the 4th c. is very slight. Ostian bishops attended
church councils in the early 4th c., and Constantine is
said to have endowed a basilica dedicated to SS. Peter
and Paul. But the only 4th c. church so far found within
the city is on the W decumanus: a small and unpretentious basilica which reused old walls. More impressive is a very handsomely decorated hall near Porta Marina. The walls are lined with bands of elaborate design in colored
marbles (opus sectile) including two portrait heads, one
of which represents a bearded Christ. This hall was violently destroyed and the last of the series of coins found
in the building dates from the time when Rome's pagan
aristocrats made a final bid to bring the old gods back.
This movement must have evoked some sympathy in
Ostia for it was at this time also that the Temple of
Hercules was restored. The Christian hall was almost
certainly destroyed by Ostian pagans.
Christian opposition to Mithraism was not always passive. In the Late Empire a Christian basilica was built in
the W wing of a set of public baths N of the Via della
Foce. Beneath it, in what had been a service corridor of
the baths, a Mithraeum had been built and here the excavators found a marble sculpture of Mithras slaying the
bull. The sculpture was found in scattered fragments,
deliberately broken.
By the time Christianity was firmly established at Ostia
the city was in decline. Ostia had lost her importance to
Rome because the settlement by the imperial harbors
could now service the reduced flow of shipping. The new
situation was made explicit when Constantine gave the
harbor settlement its own charter as Civitas Flavia Constantiniana Portuensis. In Ostia the population had shrunkconsiderably. After the early 3d c. there was very
little new building and some large buildings destroyed by
fire were not replaced. Most repairs were carried out with
old material and necropoleis were rifled for paving stones.
In the Late Empire a new social pattern emerged. Private
houses, which were eclipsed during the expansion, now
became prominent again while the large multiple dwellings decayed. Many of the new houses made use of old
walls but they shared common features. They expanded
horizontally rather than vertically, fountains became a
fashionable extravagance and marble was lavishly used
to line floors and walls. These houses were occupied by
rich men, among them Roman senators; for with trade
concentrated at the harbors, seaside Ostia was more attractive to residents. That is why St. Augustine, returning
with his mother to Africa, stayed at Ostia rather than
at Portus. But with the collapse of Rome's power, Ostia
soon became vulnerable to invaders and pirates. From
the 5th c. conditions deteriorated until in the 9th c. the
town was evacuated and Pope Gregory built for the survivors a small fortified settlement E of the ruins which
took his name, Gregoriopolis. Nature gradually buried
the ruins of the old town. Through the Middle Ages it
became a quarry for building materials and lime; in and
after the Renaissance it was a hunting ground for treasures. Systematic excavation was begun in the late 19th c.
and sharply accelerated between 1938 and 1942 until
roughly two-thirds of the town was uncovered. There is
an excellent museum on the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Scavi di Ostia, Libreria dello stato,
Rome: I.
Topografia generale (G. Becatti et al.) 1953;
II.
I Mitrei (G. Becatti) 1954; III. 1.
Le tombe di eta
repubblicana e Augustea (M. F. Squarciapino) 1958; IV.
Mosaici e pavimenti marmorei 2 vols. (G. Becatti)
1961; v. 1.
I ritratti (R. Calza) 1964;VI.
Edificio con
opus sectile fuori Porta Romana (G. Becatti) 1969; L.
Paschetto,
Ostia colonia romana (1912); R. Calza & E.
Nash,
Ostia (1959)
P; R. Meiggs,
Roman Ostia2
(1974)
MPI; J. E. Packer,
The Insulae of Imperial Osda,
MAAR 36 (1971)
PI; “The Horrea of Ostia and Portus”
in G. E. Rickman,
Roman Granaries and Store Buildings (1971)
PI.
R. MEIGGS
