Rome Day 5
On our 5th day in Rome we hired a private driver and guide and took a trip out to Ostia Antiqua to see the ruins of the ancient port town that had once been a flourishing and diverse commercial center.
It's more expensive to do it that way, but you get to see the site on your schedule taking as much time as you want, you don't have to stick to a "scripted" tour, and you get the benefit of the guide's full and rich knowledge of the history of the site. Quite often you'll hear stories and information that is not part of a scripted group tour.
The name Ostia comes from the latin word "Ostium", meaning "mouth" - so named because it was situated at the mouth of the Tiber river. I say "was" because the coastline and landscape has changed considerably in the many centuries that have since passed. At the time when Ostia was a flourishing port town, the coastline was about 4km inland from where it is now and salt marshes extended between the river and a pond that no longer exists.
Our Ostia tour was an amazing experience - like walking through a 2000 year old ghost town. The structures and road ways are fairly well preserved and intact. You can even see wheel ruts in the ancient stones of the road. Even some of the original furnishings - like the large marble slab table in the fish store on which one can imagine the prioprietor displaying the morning's catch - remain in several of the buildings where they were originally excavated.
Some of the most interesting areas we explored:
- The markets / "corporations" behind the theatre
- the fish store
- The flour mill - with the mill stones still in position
- the toilets!
- the Thermopoleum and the "Coffee bars" as our guide referred to them because of the starbucks coffee-bar style eating counters :-) basically ancient restaurants where locals and visitors could pull up to a counter, order food, and catch up on the days gossip.
- the intricately tiled floors of the baths
- The Theatre
- The temples
- The fire fighter barracks (of which unfortunately I cannot find our photos)
It was easy to imagine the busy throng of the 100,000+ citizens going about their lives in the streets of the town day in and day out given how well preserved the buildings all were.
We wandered amid the ruins for hours, as our guide explained the structures, the architecture, the building techniques and methods used to do things like fight fires, heat the steam and bath houses, carry the waste away from under the toilets... etc.
The story of Ostia is an interesting one. I think one of the things I found most interesting about the town was its rich mixture of diverse culture and religions.
Numerous cults and religions were imported from eastern countries via traders, solders and lsaves brought to rome from conquered countries. In the excavation at Ostia thus far, 18 Mithraeums have been found, dating from the II and III century. There is also a fairly large Synagogue built in the middle of the I century AD, by the Jewish community of 2,000 - 3,000 traders and merchants who lived in Ostia. There are traces of an ancient Basilica, St. Cyriacus near the theater and remnants of another Basilica on the Decumanus (main rode through Ostia). There were also temples, statues, and sanctuaries dedicated to the egyptian diety Serapis; to Sabatius and Attis - divinities from Frigia, a region in Asia Minor; Bellona, anient latin goddes of War, and to numerous Roman dieties.
Pictures from our visit to Ostia
This was I think my most favourite day in Italy. It was a gorgeous day - hot like the rest of them, deep blue, cloudless sky, and there were very few tourists exploring the ruins. But the best part was the fact that everything we looked at, touched, and walked on was steeped in the ancient history of at least 20 centuries!