The lamplight of the city is fading behind me as I sortof limp along on the way to Roma. Julilla left word she'll appear divinely from above someone on or near the Porta Ostiense - the great gate of that part of Rome's walls, smack where I'm intending to go. Just wish Pyrex hadn't been quite so - er - enthusiastic with that birch rod! I've sent him to look after the Sausage - I think he and a chariot had an encounter of the IIIrd kind!

Ahh, now I'm on the road out of the city, and the crowds have gone back to their dinners. What did I pick up about Ostia today, besides the fact they have great bars?

The Romans believed a king named Ancus Marcius founded Ostia well before the age of the kings in Rome (7th century BC). By the fourth century, a village existed on the site and, during Rome’s third-century military expansion against other Latin tribes, a fort was built at the mouth of the Tiber river (at Ostia) to protect the city’s supply lines by sea. From the start, Ostia was critical to the fleets of Rome. It became the seat of the quaestores classici (quaestors of the fleet), known as quaestor ostiensis. As the war with Carthage continued, Ostia’s military and strategic importance led the city to grow, but it was not until the imperial period that her importance as a commercial port was confirmed. During the Republic, the shoreline near Ostia offered no natural protection to ships. Small boats could sail up the Tiber to Rome, and deep-draught vessels could not.

The marsh surrounding Ostia itself required major drainage and led to summer epidemics of malaria. It would take the efforts of several Caesars (primarily Claudian and Trajan) to dredge and rebuild the shallow waterways of Ostia to protect and welcome the imperial fleets that would eventually make her one of the great cities of Italy. By the second century AD, Ostia would have more than 40,000 citizens and surpass Puteoli in the Bay of Naples as Rome’s lifeline to the Empire.
In the meantime, the city was plundered and destroyed by Marius during the wars with Sulla (87 BC) and destroyed by pirates in 67 BC, leading to Pompey’s great commission to clear the Mediterranean of this impediment to international trade.


Working from the original harbor district, the Emperor Claudius began construction of a new, protected harbor (Portus) and gigantic lighthouse, largely to protect the grain supply arriving at Ostia from Egypt. Portus lies, largely, under Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport and has hardly been excavated. He frequently visited the city during his rule (41-54 AD) and left it far stronger and more flexible as Rome’s primary port complex. Nero also expanded the works at Ostia. Portus gained an additional harbor when the Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD) further expanded the port and largely rebuilt the city. The stately homes of an earlier Ostia were replaced by “urban housing” for its thousands of dockworkers, merchants, vendors, sailors, government officials, boardinghouse-keepers, and prostitutes. Now, apartment buildings several stories tall – the infamous insulae of Rome – workships and commercial buildings and warehouses proliferated. Temples, baths, a theatre, and all the hallmarks of Roman towns sprung from the wealthy merchant-seafarers of Ostia. The beautiful Forum of Ostia was surrounded by black-and-white mosaic tile in which each shipowner and merchant advertised his own business in Latin and art.



However, by the third century, Portus was beginning to grow at Ostia’s expense and under the Emperor Constantine, Portus was made a separate city. In addition, Constantine moved the Imperial Court to Constantinople and Italy became his second priority. Ostia began to decline as imports decayed. It became the “bedroom community” for those working at Portus. By the time of the barbarian invasions of the fifth century A.D., it had become insignificant enough that Alaric and his army, who famously sacked Rome, left Ostia alone. The Vandals sacked Portus in 455 AD; Ostia may also have been plundered.

The magnificent harbor engineering decayed, the roads began to break up, and – most importantly – the Imperial trade lifeline that made Ostia was broken. Swamp waters flooded back into the city areas and malaria became endemic. The harbor, which had been silting up for centuries, was no longer maintained. After the Saracens invaded Italy in the 9th century, Ostia was abandoned; a new village was built farther to the east. The ruins disappeared under dirt, rubble, and trees and slept for a thousand years.

Ostia now is asleep, but every now and then you enter a building and, in a flash, feel like you know precisely what it looked and sounded like, two thousand years ago . . . note the art in the reconstruction and on the wall!






The modern excavations of Ostia did not begin until the 18th century. Between 1938 and 1942, Mussolini hurriedly excavated two-thirds of the city, which is visible today.

To learn more, try:

Senex Caecilius’ great site at Senex

Most photographs by the author; many great pix of Ostia may be found at Maecenas.

Ostia (great images)

Ostia Antica

Ostia: Harbor of Ancient Rome