Archaeology Magazine - March 1948 - 36

ARCHAEOLOGY

38
as well as under streets and even the forum, there are remains of earlier construction. Studied in conjunction
with our literary evidence, they allow us to reconstruct
the earlier history of the city. Briefly, it was this.
Pre-Imperiai

Ostia

manned to protect the Italian coast in the vicinity of
Rome. The population of Ostia must have grown considerably at this period and continued to grow thereafter,
so that it soon expanded beyond the original walls. Nevertheless, the defeat of Carthage and Rome's long series of
military successes throughout the Mediterranean world
during the second century b.c. apparently made it superfluous to erect new fortifications. Where, indeed, was the
enemy whom Ostia had to fear ?
The enemy turned out to be a Roman. When Gaius
Marius returned from exile in 87 b.c. and marched on
Rome, he captured and pillaged Ostia on the way. The
city may have stood earlier on the side of Sulla, which
would be sufficient explanation of the treatment to which
it was subjected. Be that as it may, in occupying Ostia,
Marius was also preventing Rome from receiving any
supplies by sea. The people of Ostia learned a lesson from
this disaster, for it cannot be long after Sulla's return and
final victory in 82 b.c. that the present walls were built.

The Romans of classical times believed that Ostia was
founded as a Roman colony by Ancus Martius, the fourth
king of Rome, in the seventh century b.c. Archaeology
has relegated this belief to the realm of legend. It has done
so on the basis of the remains of the city's earliest walls
found below the imperial level in the vicinity of the
forum. They were built of square tufa blocks which
formed a rectangle 193 by 126 meters in extent. Owing
chiefly to the studies of Roman building material made by
the late Professor Tenney Frank, we know that tufa
of this quality came from Fidenae and was used to build
the first temple of Concord in 366 b.c. and the walls
which the Romans erected around their city at about the
same time, after the Gallic invasion. It was not used
Ostia in the Empire
after the fourth century b.c. in Rome. Hence, these
Ostian walls were most likely constructed during the
At the beginning of the Empire, Ostia was enjoying a
latter half of the fourth century b.c.
brisk maritime commerce. It could not, however, expect
From our literary sources, we know that a Roman to dislodge Puteoli on the Bay of Naples from its position
Ostia existed by 278 B.c. If we now look for an event in as the chief port of western Italy so long as it had no
the second half of the preceding century which might have harbor capable of handling sea-going freighters. Such
led to the establishment of a Roman colony at Ostia, we ships when they called at Ostia had to anchor off the
find one in the subjugation of Antium by the Romans in Tiber's mouth and discharge their cargoes into lighters.
338. While Antium was free and an enemy, it would A few of them might be partially discharged in this way
have been impossible for the Romans to maintain a post on and then make their way up the Tiber with the rest of
the south bank of the Tiber at its mouth. On the other their cargoes, but these must have been of exceptionally
hand, once Antium had been conquered, there was every shallow draft even when fully loaded. From any point of
reason for the Romans to profit from the occasion by mak- view the situation was unsatisfactory. Rome needed a
deep-water port for many reasons, but especially to handle
ing the lower course of the Tiber securely their own.
It is therefore assumed that the tufa walls protected a the grain imported to feed the city's vast and growing
Roman fortress established at the mouth of the Tiber population.
To remedy this lack the emperors Claudius and Trashortly after 338 b.c. Politically speaking, this settlement
had the form of a colony. It must have been situated jan built the harbors and canal shown in Figure 1. That
about 200 meters from the Tiber and a slightly greater they had the desired effect from the start is quite clear
distance from the coastline as it then existed. Professor from the fact alone that, with the completion of Claudius'
Frank believed that reflections of this early fortress are harbor, the grain fleet from Alexandria abandoned Puteoli
to be found in Vergil's descriptions, in the Aeneid, of for Ostia as its final destination. Ostia entered upon "a
Aeneas' fortress on the Tiber.
period of new prosperity. For two centuries and a half
it
flourisheá as the business center of Rome's maritime
Punic
of
second
war
the
the
desperate struggle
During
Ostia was used by the Romans as a naval base. Its im- commerce. Fortunately, for this period, especially the
portance as such can be illustrated by two events: In 211 second and third centuries A.D., our archaeological eviB.c. Cornelius Scipio, later to be called Aficanus, set sail dence is most abundant. Let us now see what it can tell
from Ostia with thirty quinquiremes in order to retrieve us about life in Ostia at the time.
Rome's fortunes in Spain; in 208 B.c. Ostia served as the
The business life of the city was concentrated around
base of a "home fleet'" of fifty ships which had been a large square or piazzale behind the theatre, north of the

Archaeology Magazine - March 1948

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