093 ostia antica

On Sunday, I visited the site of Ostia Antica, located some 20 miles or so south of Rome. (Above: marble mosaic from Ostia Antica).

Ostia = name of the city
Antica = "ancient", distinguishes it from modern-day Ostia.

Ostia was founded between the 7th and 4th centuries BC where the Tiber Riber meets the Meditteranean. Orginally, it is believed that the town was sited at this strategic point for military defense. As Rome's power grew, the defense was less important, and Ostia functioned as the primary shipping port of Rome.

The ruins in Ostia are much better preserved than those in Rome, because the port and city was abandoned when the Romans diverted the flow of the Tiber. In particular, the mosaic floors of many of the bathhouses on site are intact: a field of white with images in black of Neptune, porpoises, and swimmers.


Upon arriving at the site at about 11 am, I was amazed just to get a sense of the scale of the city. It was huge. I walked down the main road, the Decumano Massimo, taking occasional meandering paths through other parts of the city. I felt like an adventurer in a ghost town - there were probably a few hundred tourists there, but once you got off the main street you were completely alone.


Some of the best mosaics on site are hidden in random buildings with no signage whatsoever, like these two pink little angels:


Seeing that image really makes you consider conservation approaches for exterior mosaic. Do you leave it in its original context, to fade under sun and rain, and to be stolen by tourists? If I had wanted to, I could have scooped up these mosaic pieces, put them in my bag and walked off the site. Or do you take them out of context and place them in a museum where you can control the temperature, light, and humidity?

By about 2 pm, I was exhausted from the heat and a little sunburnt so I headed back to the train station and continued south to the end of the line to enjoy the rest of the day on the beach with my Italian-language books.