The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics.
Ostia is a derivation of the Latin word for "mouth" and is situated at the mouth of the River Tiber, 25 km from the modern city.
The original military function of the river port of Ostia was soon replaced by the commercial imperative to service the needs of the city of Rome.
Because the size and draught of sea-going cargo ships was too great to enter the Tiber, they were unloaded a little further up the coast and the cargo transferred to medium-tonnage ships that could enter the port of Ostia. Here, after the necessary layover at the warehouses, the goods were transported to Rome on barges suitable for navigating the Tiber.
Roman cities are always cited either North-South or East-West according to the topology. The long road through Ostia runs east-west along the river Tiber while the main north-south road is much shorter and leads to and from the river and the main cargo landing wharves. The photo above is the north-south road with the river to the north (in front). The road is lined with merchants shops and offices, the most prominent businesses being closest to the docks.
Right next door is the commercial market - a huge piazza surrounded on four sides by porticoed colonnades and home to 58 secured warehouses with barrel vaulted ceilings (like the modern ones here). Archeologists don't know exactly what these warehouses stored but they do know it wasn't grain as the storage areas don't reflect the tiered systems required for maintaining dry and clean grain.
The public and residential areas of the city were further away from the river. Every Roman city has its baths. The biggest in Ostia was the Terme di Nettuno, built in the 2nd-century with striking floor mosaics that are still in very good condition. Here you can see Neptune in his chariot together with all the creatures of the sea.
Bath complexes always included recreational areas such as a gymnasium, an outdoor area for exercise.
The gymnasium area. The buildings on the far side housed the fire brigade and you can see three very deep, rectangular holding tanks for water which were siphoned out for emergency purposes. I wonder if they had water carts or whether many, many men had to run to the fire with buckets.
Still keeping the people happy ...... just down the road from the baths is the theatre complex with very steeply stacked seating.
The theatre complex was very large. It included a small temple in the middle of a park and surrounded on three sides by a colonnaded walkway and about 70 shops that sold luxury goods.
Outside each shop was a sign, inlaid into the footpath, describing what was on sale at the shop or who its owner was. This shop sold fish, dates and olive oil from Morocco. We saw shops importing goods from Narbonne in France, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Greece and more.
There was also a cafe called the Thermopolium, where apparently you can make out traces of a menu frescoed on the wall. But we couldn't find it.
All of the public buildings like the Forum, the law courts and temples were faced with marble like this. It must have looked magnificent.
Burial and the afterlife were important and Rome was fiercely broadminded about religion. There were all sorts of sects operating in the city. This beautiful carving on a sarcophagus was one of dozens we saw in the museum.
Next day we went out to the airport on the train to pick up our lease car. And having a car we thought we'd better go somewhere - so we went to Ostia Lido, the coastal area about 4km from the ancient city of Ostia Antica .
The sea was wild, it was raining but I'm told that "it just had to be done!"
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