This article, published in 1912, discusses the importance of Ostia in ancient Roman times and it covers digging up the ancient seaport in the early 1900s.
Ostia – Digging Up a Buried City
After being buried under sand for fifteen centuries, the remains of Ostia, the Newport of the ancient Romans, have now been largely unearthed. This year’s American visitors to the Eternal City will find them almost as interesting to visit as Pompeii itself.
Ostia is older, too, than either Pompeii or Herculaneum, older than Rome itself, whose seaport, as well as fashionable watering place, the long buried city used to be.
The work of unearthing Ostia has now been going on for some years. Of late, thanks to the interest that has been taken in it by king Victor Emmanuel and the parliament – the latter having just voted $150,000 toward new excavations – it has made rapid headway. The two principle streets of the city, as well as its splendid theater, having been brought to light. This ancient town, the greatest center of commerce and of amusement of Roman times, with its splendid buildings and magnificent monuments, has been buried since the fall of the Roman Empire in a grave of mingled sand, stones and rubbish, which in places is up to 30 feet deep.
The upper ten of Rome had their summer homes at Ostia, which is only thirteen miles from the capital, and used to go there in April and stay until September, during all of which time there was a lot of doing. The Maiumae, or May festival, was celebrated at Ostia with great pomp by the emperor and his court, who drove all the way from Rome in their gorgeous state coaches, followed, say the records, by the notables, which means the 400 of the day, and the matronea, which may mean the chaperones, though they had little use of these in those rapid days, and accompanied by crowds of people cheering to Castor and Pollux, the presiding divinities of the place. These festivals lasted several weeks, during which there were constant libations which is Roman for rounds of drinks, and sacrifices to Bacchus and Venus, the gods of wine and love.
Plutarch, Livy, and Cicero speak of Ostia as having been a “place of delight” and “the favorite town of emperors and nobility for several hundred years.” Nero had a special fondness for the Roman Newport, which is another way of saying that there was a warm time in the old town on more than one night, judging by the imperial fiddler’s liking for splendid orgies. That the goddess of love enjoyed a special popularity among the Ostienses, as the inhabitants of the city were called, is shown by the large number of statues of Venus, including one particularly fine one, which have been discovered there. There is evidence, too, of the cronistae, the reporters of that time, that the life in the season at Ostia was, in the words of Bill Nye, a continuous round of torchlight processions and Mardi Gras.
It is pretty hard to say how many years before the foundation of Rome Ostia was in existence and flourishing as the seaport of Latium. Virgil says that Aeneas, escaping from the burning Troy, stopped with his fellows at the mouths of the Tiber, where he founded the New Troy, afterwards called by the simpler name of Ostia. This poetical account is not wholly supported by historical investigations, however. But there is no doubt that Ancus Marcius, who lived some 400 years before the birth of Christ, established himself at Ostia after having defeated several Latin towns.
It was the foundation of Rome and its rapid development that caused an equally rapid and marvelous development of the port of Ostia. This, owing to the short distance from the city, was often called the port of Rome, and it provided for the city the greatest part of the many requisites for its existence. From the corn of Egypt and Sicily to the marbles of Greece and Asia Minor, from the wines of Falernus and of Naples to the gold of Africa and Spain, everything brought to Rome was landed at Ostia and thence by the Tiber was shipped to the capital. Ostia followed Rome in its splendor and its magnitude; when the Roman empire was at its zenith, Ostia was also at the maximum of its glory. Not only was it a commercial center, but a military base for war expeditions. Claudius, the emperor, sailed from Ostia to the conquest of Britain.
Excavations at Ostia had never been successfully and scientifically carried out until a few years ago. The world owes to Professor Lanciani, the Italian archaeologist, the first scientific research of the ruins of the town. This savant was also the first to draw the attention of the Italian government to the treasures which the sands of Ostia were concealing. Some authorities on archaeology almost discouraged Professor Lanciani in his first attempts, but a short work was quite sufficient to prove what an important page of history Ostia would disclose to the world if its ruins were brought to light.
The excavations at Ostia have now uncovered the two main thoroughfares of the town, the “decumanus,” which, according to Roman topography, marked the first foundations of the city. The decumanus, the street leading to the sea, was flanked by porticoes leading to shops or private houses. Some of the porticoes have been found in excellent condition and most of the walls are also well preserved. These walls are, as usual in Roman architecture, rather thick, thus showing that the heat must have been considerable in the town, especially as almost every house bears traces of an open space or veranda which opens toward the sea and is sheltered from the sun’s rays.
The theater, which lies close to the decumanus, still bears its original form and some of its columns, its statues and its mosaics are beautifully preserved. The capitals of the columns are of remarkable workmanship and judging by their height and by the size of the statues which adorned the entrance of the theater the latter must have been an exceedingly large building to hold several thousand people. It was founded by Agrippa and restored by Caracalla at the end of the fourth century. In this theater was found a large statue of Venus which is now at the Lateran Museum in Rome, while another, the Venus of the Sea, has been found buried underneath the stage.
A great part of the decumanus has yet to be unearthed, the greatest and perhaps the most interesting part, as this is the portion approaching the sea, where the famous port is supposed to have been in existence. Professor Vaglieri – who, in succession to Lanciani, is now in charge of the excavations – thinks that he may not only come across the walls of the port and its docks, but that he may also find the remains of ancient ships and at any rate archaeological material of the greatest importance for the reconstruction of this old port.
Source: The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.), 24 Aug. 1912.
