Ostia

“ You will like to hear about a day of pure delight. I left home, duty, and family, and went off with Donna Primavera for an outing at Ostia. We started at ten in the morning, returned at six at night. I had been there before on my bicycle—it is a capital road—but on that occasion I saw nothing except the view. Ostia is an ancient Roman commercial town founded by Ancus Martius, the fourth of the Roman kings; that takes it back to the sixth century B.C. The ruins of Ostia are on the banks of the Tiber. From here the fleets of merchant galleys sailed away to Greece and Africa. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we had pitched our tent on the hillside, a few rods from the shore, we sat looking through its triangular door in the twilight at our lonely mast on the shore, just seen above the alders, and hardly yet come to a stand-still from the swaying of the stream; the first encroachment of commerce on this land. There was our port, our Ostia. That straight geometrical line against the water and the sky stood for the last refinements of civilized life, and what of sublimity there is in history was there symbolized. ”

“ The Campagna is beneath you continually, with the sea beyond Ostia receiving the silver arrows of the sun upon its chased and burnished shield, and mighty Rome, to the north, lying at no great length in the idle immensity around it. The highway passes below Castel Gandolfo, which stands perched on an eminence behind a couple of gateways surmounted with the Papal tiara and twisted cordon ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rasher deeds were not seldom done under the promptings of desperation. Trembling beneath the sway of such imaginings, each footfall that resounded in the hall seemed like the light and buoyant step of him who had trodden with her the sands of Ostia—each figure that passed by bore, for the instant, the outline of his form—even at the open window the well-known face seemed to peer in at every corner and watch her. ”

“ With them I went many delightful expeditions into the distant Campagna: to Ostia, with its then still gorgeous marbles and melancholy tower and pine; to Castel Fusano, with its palace, like that of the Sleeping Beauty, rising lovely from its green lawns, with its pine avenue and decaying vases with golden-flowered aloes, and beyond all the grand old forest with its deep green recesses and gigantic pines and bays and ilexes, its deep still pools and its abysses of wood, bounded on one side by the Campagna, and on the other by the 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. ”

“ 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 accursèd sail."
But now no sound of laughter was heard among the foes.
A wild and wrathful clamor 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.
But hark! the cry is Astur: and lo! the ranks divide;
And the great Lord of Luna comes with his stately stride. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Often in my girlhood I traversed that desolate road between the city and the sea, and all the vitality of youth could not avert the shudder of cold and solitude that came over me in doing so, no matter how numerous and gay my companions might be. We used to drive out to Ostia in the spring, when the sea calls so alluringly to its lovers, and spend long hours under the pines that fringe the beach. The Tiber abandoned the old port long ago and twists itself into the Mediterranean a couple of miles north of its original outlet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Like Ostia, Puteoli was considered a special port of Rome, and, on account of the safety and convenience of its harbour, it was preferred to Ostia for the landing of the more costly and delicate wares. ”

“ IT was known in Rome that Cæsar wished to see Ostia on the journey, or rather the largest ship in the world, which had brought wheat recently from Alexandria, and from Ostia to go by the Via Littoralis to Antium. Orders had been given a number of days earlier; hence at the Porta Ostiensis, from early morning, crowds made up of the local rabble and of all nations of the earth had collected to feast their eyes with the sight of Cæsar’s retinue, on which the Roman population could never gaze sufficiently. The road to Antium was neither difficult nor long. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”