Archaeology Magazine - March 1948 - 34

ARCHAEOLOGY

formed by the two streets just mentioned. The results
obtained by comparing this area with the rest of the
excavated areas should speak for themselves.
To put it another way, Ostia had an area in imperial
times of 690,000 square meters, between the city walls
and the Tiber. To this we shall have to add about 21,000 square meters, which represent the part of the city
outside the walls which grew up to the west along the sea.
Today the displacement of the Tiber, the destruction
caused by its frequent overflowing, and the impossibility
of excavating too close to its banks, have reduced the area
within the city which can be effectively excavated to about
500,000 square meters. Of these some 330,000 square
meters, or two thirds of the, remains subject to excavation, have now been cleared.
Earliest Excavations
The earliest excavations at Ostia, in the eighteenth
century and the first half of the nineteenth, were distinctly
unscientific. They were undertaken with the chief purpose of enriching public and private collections in Italy and
abroad with new monuments and works of art from the
classical period. Digging was spasmodic and unsystematic, finds and general progress were not recorded, and in
some instances this planless treasure hunting destroyed and
confused evidence from which much could have been
learned today, had it been left alone.
A change for the better took place in 1855 when P. E.
Visconti was appointed director of the excavations. Although he was expected to add to the collections in the
papal museums, he pursued his work systematically in the
places where he thought to find the richest artistic rewards. He was assisted by Rodolfo Lanciani, whose
studies of ancient Rome are now among the classics of
Italian archaeology. Between those two scholars an
earnest beginning was made.
For what we know of Ostia today, we are chiefly indebted to the intelligence, energy and learning of two
more recent scholars. Dante Vaglieri began his work
in 1908 and continued it until his death in 1913. His
mission, as he conceived it, was to bring the ancient city
to light as a whole and to establish its topography and
history. By the time of his death, he had cleared and investigated most of the area north of the decumanus and
east of the forum.
Guido Calza
Vaglieri^ work was continued in the same scientific
spirit, and with the same scrupulous method, by Guido
Calza.
From 1914 to 1946, Calza not only directed
the excavations as a whole, but also found time to publish

Figure 3. Restoration of the House of Serapis, Ostia;
CAPITAL
REPLACING
AFALLEN
ONITSPILLAR.
his discoveries in scores of reports and articles. Such rapid
publication, made at a sacrifice of time and effort, gave
the world much new information, which might have remained unknown for decades if he had decided to produce only definitive publications. It also enabled other
scholars to bring their learning to bear on the new material, and to propose solutions of the problems to which it
gave rise. Calza welcomed this cooperation. He was
not the kind of man in whom long association with a site
creates a feeling of proprietary rights.
One of his last and finest contributions to our knowledge of classical antiquity is a discussion of the population
of ancient Rome. In it Calza uses his unparalleled
knowledge of Ostia to throw new light on the size of the
imperial city's population and to reach the soundest con-

Archaeology Magazine - March 1948

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1948