Ostia Antica

“ Ostia, destroyed by Marius, restored by Sulla, was failing in the days of Strabo to discharge its duty as the haven of Rome. It had yielded to the same enemy which afterwards overcame Ravenna and Pisa; the silt of Father Tiber was too much for it. Yet, notwithstanding this misfortune, notwithstanding the change which it led to, when Claudius found it needful to transfer the harbour of Rome to Portus on the other side of the river, Ostia contrived to live on through all 103 disadvantages. ”

“ Thousands of spectators, and among them many Christians, had flocked to Ostia to see her embark. If they dared not express their feelings, they longed at least silently to show their sympathy. They recognised Anicetus. He embarked amid a tempest of groans and hootings so full of execration that he trembled lest he should be torn to pieces by the mob, and abjectly entreated the protection of his guards. Thenceforth he vanishes from history. He died in Sardinia, rich and impenitent ”

“ The main north-south street, the cardo, began at the Porta Laurentina on the south—Ostia’s triplicity of gates is an Etruscan heritage—and ran, shaded and porticoed, northwestward to the dazzling whiteness of the colonnaded, marble-enriched Forum. Then it split in two on either side of Hadrian’s Capitolium and passed north between balconied houses to the river. Sixteen per cent of Ostia’s total area, exactly the same proportion as a modern city such as Madison, Wisconsin, was devoted to streets. ”

“ Ostia is the only one of those desolate sites that I know yet. I study sometimes Niebuhr, and other books about Rome, but not to any great profit.
In the circle of my friends, two have fallen. One a person of great wisdom, strength, and calmness. She was ever to me a most tender friend, and one whose sympathy I highly valued. Like you by nature and education conservative, she was through thought liberal. With no exuberance or passionate impulsiveness herself, she knew how to allow for these in others. The other was a woman of my years, of the most precious gifts in heart and genius. ”

“ Herminius smote down Aruns: Lartius laid Ocnus low: Right to the heart of Lausulus Horatius sent a blow. ‘Lie there,’ he cried, ‘fell pirate! No more, aghast and pale, From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark The track of thy destroying bark. No more Campania's hinds shall fly To woods and caverns when they spy Thy thrice-accursed sail.’
But now no sound of laughter Was heard amongst the foes. A wild and wrathful clamour From all the vanguard rose. Six spears' lengths from the entrance Halted that deep array, And for a space no man came forth To win the narrow way. ”

“ She can wish for no more agreeable surprise.”
“So be it then!” cried Aurelius; “and when all is settled, we will join the festivities.”
The first houses of Ostia were now visible on either hand, and the bustle and stir in the road grew busier. Seamen of every nation, fishermen with red worsted caps, porters, and barrowmen, pushed and crowded each other. In five minutes they had reached the quay; at the farther end of the mole lay the trireme, gaily dressed with flags, and towering majestically above the fishing vessels and barges. ”

“ Poor fishermen, of a wild appearance, dwell along the shore, in miserable huts. The Campagna, between Ostia and Rome, possesses but few remains of antiquity, but it affords splendid views of the Tiber, and of park-like meadows, grazed by vast herds of cattle and sheep. The Roman oxen are the most stately animals of their race. They pace along, with their lofty, beautifully-curved horns, in perfectly senatorial grandeur, and represent, in their way, the dignity of the old Roman Senate, far more worthily than the present, which represents it only in name. ”

“ Thereafter Ostia, whose fortunes rose with Rome’s, declines with her also.
The most illuminating way to describe what archaeology has to tell us about Ostia is to follow the plan used for Pompeii, treating in order the town and its population, municipal life and public amenities, housing arrangements, trade and industry, and the evidence for Ostia’s religious life. Art in Ostia hardly deserves separate treatment: it is, naturally, less well-preserved than at Pompeii, and what there is seldom rises above the level of pure documentation. ”

“ Claudius’, two-and-a-half miles northwest of the town. The traffic in grain and luxury goods to feed and pander to the more or less refined tastes of the largest and richest city in the world made Ostia vastly prosperous. The evidence is building activity, dated by brick stamps, impressed on building tiles, and bearing the names of consuls, tile manufacturers, or both. There was a slight time-253lag, while prosperity built up. Only twelve per cent of the datable buildings in Ostia belong to Trajan’s reign; forty-three per cent were built or restored under Hadrian. ”

“ In that warm latitude he rises with the day. The night-vapors are already rolling away over the Campagna sea-ward. As he looks from his window, above and beyond their white folds he recognises the tremulous blue sea at Ostia. Over Soracte rises the sun,--over his own beloved mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof old. Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks. ”

“ For why should I complain of the disaster of Ostia, and of that stain and blot on the republic, when almost under your very eyes, that fleet which was under the command of a Roman consul was taken and destroyed by the pirates? O ye immortal gods! could the incredible and godlike virtue of one man in so short a time bring so much light to the republic, that you who had lately been used to see a fleet of the enemy before the mouth of the Tiber, should now hear that there is not one ship belonging to the pirates on this side of the Atlantic? ”

“ Besides the palace, there is the great central temple, be it of Jupiter or of Vulcan, standing so proudly on its steps. There is a theatre whose columns and inscriptions supply no small materials for study, a theatre of which it might be too much to say that it suggests those of Orange or Taormina, but which certainly suggests that of Arles.
In the sixth century Procopius describes Ostia as lacking walls, and he complains that the road from Ostia to Rome did not follow the course of the river, and was therefore useless as a 104 towing-path. This is eminently true still. ”

“ In 166 A.D. in Ostia a dedication was of importance enough to have the names of both the consuls of the year and the duoviri quinquennales at the head of the inscription. [311]
The year that C. Cuperius and C. Arrius were quinquennales with censorial power (II vir c.p.q.) in Ostia, there was a dedication of some importance in connection with a tree that had been struck by lightning. [312]
In Gabii a decree in honor of the house of Domitia Augusta was passed in the year when there were quinquennales. ”

“ OSTIA, an ancient town and harbour of Latium, Italy, at the mouth of the river Tiber on its left bank. It lies 14 m. S.W. from Rome by the Via Ostiensis, a road of very ancient origin still followed by a modern road which preserves some traces of the old pavement and remains of several ancient bridges. It was the first colony ever founded by Rome—according to the Romans themselves, by Ancus Martius—and took its name from its position at the mouth (ostium) of the river. ”

“ Ancus loved peace, but he could not yet lay down his arms, for he saw that Rome ought to secure the land that lay between the city and the sea. So he led his army against the tribes to whom this land belonged, and, taking it from them, he built a town at the mouth of the Tiber, which he called Ostia. And here a busy harbour was soon to be seen, from which Roman ships set sail for the open sea. ”

“ We are apt to speak as if travelling were an invention of our time: but as a matter of fact facilities of travelling then existed little inferior to those we ourselves possessed thirty or forty years ago, and it was no strange or unusual journey from Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, by the soft Mediterranean shores, past the vexed rocks of the Sirens in the blazing weather, to Cyprus that island of monasteries, and Antioch a vexed and heresy-tainted city yet full of friends and succour. ”

“ See! a sur-mullet now before him set, 140
From Corsica, or isles more distant yet,
Brought post to Rome; since Ostia's shores no more
Supply the insatiate glutton, as of yore,
Thinned by the net, whose everlasting throw
Allows no Tuscan fish in peace to grow. 145
Still luxury yawns, unfilled; the nations rise,
And ransack all their coasts for fresh supplies:
Thence come your presents; thence, as rumor tells,
The dainties Lenas buys, Aurelia sells. ”

“ On the third day after the tumult, Genseric boldly advanced from the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. Instead of a sally of the Roman youth, there issued from the gates an unarmed and venerable procession of the bishop at the head of his clergy. The fearless spirit of Leo, his authority and eloquence, again mitigated the fierceness of a barbarian conqueror; the king of the Vandals promised to spare the unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to exempt the captives from torture ”

“ Instead of assaulting the capital, he successfully directed his efforts against the Port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman magnificence. The accidents to which the precarious subsistence of the city was continually exposed in a winter navigation, and an open road, had suggested to the genius of the first Cæsar the useful design, which was executed under the reign of Claudius. ”

“ That emperor erected a temple to Mithra at Ostia.3037 Rome and Ostia were probably the earliest points in Italy invaded by the Persian worship. All the conditions were favourable to an early and rapid propagation of the cult in the capital of the world. Soldiers from the East would be serving in the garrison, or settled after their release from service. Eastern slaves swarmed in all the great houses, including that of the emperor. A large proportion of the dedications are made by men of servile origin, and the very name of the dedicator would often be enough to indicate his nationality. ”

“ By the discharge of a cannon from these towers they advise one another so rapidly that the alarm is sped to Rome forthwith. Round Ostia are the salt works, situated in a wide marshy plain into which the sea flows, and these supply all the States of the Church.109 This road from Ostia to Rome, the Via Ostensis, abounds in vestiges of its ancient splendour, such as causeways and ruins of aqueducts ”

“ The present town of Ostia is a miserable place, with a castle of the middle ages, which is certainly picturesque. The remains of the old city are at some distance; a large space of ground, all covered over with foundations and substructions. The principal building remaining is a rectangular brick edifice, probably a temple, in front of which was a portico; but the columns, and all the ornamental architecture, have been destroyed or taken away; some fragments still lying about, and others which have been removed to the Vatican, announce it to have been of a very beautiful Corinthian order ”

“ Send then to Ostia! [462] Cæsar—send! But look for your general in some great tavern. You will find him reclining with some common cut-throat; in a medley of sailors, and thieves, and runaway slaves; among executioners and cheap coffin-makers, [463] and the now silent drums of the priest of Cybele, lying drunk on his back. [464] There there is equal liberty for all—cups in common—nor different couch for any, or table set aloof from the herd. What would you do, Ponticus, were it your lot to have a slave of such a character? Why surely you would dispatch him to the Lucanian or Tuscan bridewells. ”

“ Thy happy fate to see no rival claim
A share in what was thine without alloy;
How must the remnant of thy life seem tame!
Yet this thy recompense,—that thou dost keep
Thy friend and lover safe from every change;
For, loyal to thy love, he fell asleep,
And life it is, not death, that can estrange.
THE DEATH OF ANTONINUS PIUS Through the marble gates of Ostia,
Where the Tiber meets the sea,
And a hundred Roman galleys
Strain their leashes to be free,
Streams a flood of sunset glory
From the classic sea of old,
Till Rome's seven hills stand gleaming,
And the Tiber turns to gold. ”

“ But on the left at the point where the other part of the Tiber empties into the sea is situated the city of Ostia, lying beyond the place where the river-bank ends, a place of great consequence in olden times, but now entirely without walls. Moreover, the Romans [251] at the very beginning made a road leading from Portus to Rome, which was smooth and presented no difficulty of any kind. And many barges are always anchored in the harbour ready for service, and no small number of oxen stand in readiness close by. ”

“ When Augustin landed at Ostia, he saw rise before him, closing the perspective of the Via Appia, the Septizonium of Septimus Severus—an imitation, doubtless, on a far larger scale, of the one at Carthage. This huge construction, water-works probably of enormous size, with its ordered columns placed line above line, was, so to speak, the portico whence opened the most wonderful and colossal architectural mass known to the ancient world. Modern Rome has nothing at all to shew which comes anywhere near it. ”