Ostia Antica, Rome’s Pompeii

Ostia Antica is a vast archaeological site about 30 km from Rome. Once an Ancient Roman port town with up to 100,000 inhabitants, today Ostia Antica is one of Italy’s most amazing tourist attractions; its proximity to the city makes it a popular day trip from Rome or from the nearby Fiumicino international airport.

Instead of the volcanic ash that enveloped Pompeii near Naples, the ancient coastal city of Ostia Antica simply silted up after the fall of the Roman Empire, surviving down through the centuries covered in a thick layer of mud.

With hundreds of well-preserved buildings and artworks, Ostia Antica could be considered the Roman equivalent of Pompeii. Unlike Pompeii, however, Ostia was not destroyed by a volcanic eruption – it simply fell into decay over the centuries. Today, it’s possible to explore the ruins of ancient theatres, temples, apartment blocks, baths, brothels and much more. On a tour of Ostia Antica you’ll get a real sense of what it would have been like to live in a Roman town, strolling down cobbled streets and wandering through the remains of shops and taverns where the painted “menu” is still visible on the wall.

The origins of Ostia Antica

Legend suggests that Ostia was one of Rome’s first military outposts, founded around 620 BC, just over a century after Rome itself. The town was perfectly positioned to guard against seaborne invasions at the mouth of the River Tiber leading up into Rome. In fact, the town takes its name from its coastal location, as the Latin for mouth is “os” which became “ostium.”

Gradually, over time, Ostia built its wealth on trade. In the early years, the main cargo was grain - the staple for flour, bread and beer - from Sicily, Sardinia and Egypt. But as the Roman Empire expanded, the goods coming through Ostia expanded too. At its height, ships were bringing in wine from Bordeaux, horses and metals from Cadiz, silk and spices from the Silk Road to China, treasures of Greece and animals from Africa. As Rome grew in size, the city needed more and more provisions to feed its people. The easiest cargo route into the Eternal city was along the River Tiber, turning Ostia into an enormous domestic and commercial harbor for Mediterranean merchant ships. By 100 AD, Ostia Antica was a thriving, bustling, cosmopolitan city and home to over 100,000 people from all over the ancient Roman Empire.

Surviving frescoes and statues also show that the city was multi-faith, with one of the oldest synagogues, various temples and several mithrae for worshippers of Mithras, a religion imported from the east, especially popular with the military. It’s the daily life of shops, houses, baths, shipping companies and theatres that we see preserved today.

Ostia Antica today

Today Rome’s ancient port of Ostia Antica still sprawls over around 10,000 acres of countryside. Fortunately, the city wasn’t buried in volcanic ash like Pompeii, but the gentle silting up of the River Tiber gradually moved the shoreline away from the city, land locking it over 2 miles from the sea and condemning it to history. Over the years, grass and trees took over with local shepherds using the ruins for grazing or shelter for their sheep. Luckily, the mud that eventually buried the harbor also managed to protect it from the worst medieval scavengers looking for stone to build their houses. So today, you can take a leisurely stroll through the ruins, exploring the classic Roman grid street system that dates back more than 2000 years to its military foundation. 

Wandering around the ruins, entering streets and courtyards you notice black and white mosaics everywhere. And thankfully many are still in situ instead of in a museum. But unlike in other Roman cities, the mosaics in Ostia Antica were more than mere ornamentation, they were designed as durable pavements and signposting. So you’ll find the typical geometric patterns adorning the floors of baths while mythical characters decorate the floors of various houses. And you’ll also find entire pavements covered in mosaics indicating where rows of shops once stood. These were the original signs for traders selling to an illiterate population and today offer a fabulous insight into the shops, guilds and businesses that dotted the city. Look out for the exotic elephant that advertises the office of traders from Africa. It’s a great game to see how many you can find and decipher! Near the theatre is a large, rectangular forum which was once home to the offices of various shipping companies. To find the right company, you would have to inspect the mosaics in front to see what services they offered – the trade of grain, leather, wild animals or…sea nymphs?

Some other buildings of note include bakeries, brothels and a launderette. You may need the help of a guide on an Ostia Antica tour to find some of these buildings, as they’re not easily identifiable, but a couple of the bakeries still have large grain mills. In the fullo (launderette) you can see the remains of a basin where they would have once washed clothes. Ostia Antica also has an ancient equivalent of a fast food restaurant – a tavern where the sink, marble counters and painted menu are still in place. The fresco shows meat, wine and vegetables, presumably indicating what was on sale.

              adapted from an article in the Italo-American