Ostia Antica – Pompeii without the volcano

This is a guest post by Agnes Crawford, a licensed Rome guide, and I agree that visitors to Rome shouldn’t miss out on a visit to Ostia Antica! Though it’s outside the city center, it’s actually easy to reach from Rome. I’ll let Agnes take it from here.

I am often asked about the logistics of a day trip to Pompeii from Rome, and I always say the same thing: it’s a long (and expensive) day. It is doable, and if your heart has been set on it for as long as you can remember I don’t want to put you off, but have you thought about Ostia Antica instead?

Like Pompeii it’s an abandoned Roman city, unlike Pompeii it wasn’t the victim of a volcano, so it’s far less well known. And it’s a 25 minute metro ride from the Piramide stop in central Rome.

Ostia Antica 

Named from the Latin ostium meaning “mouth”, because it was once close to the mouth of the river Tiber, Ostia was the ancient port of Rome. Today, however, you will be hard-pressed to catch a glimpse of any water; the coast line has shifted dramatically (about two and a half miles) since its Imperial heyday, and the river has altered its course.

Ostia was a bustling city in its own right, and supported a population of 50,000 at the pinnacle of the Roman Empire, at a time when Rome’s population numbered a million souls.

When the Roman Empire stretched from the south of Scotland to the north of the Sahara, from the Atlantic to Iraq, the majority of goods imported into the city – granite and oil, wine and precious metals, elephants and giraffes, garum and grain – entered the city via Ostia. As indeed did people; the port was a hub of merchants and slaves, of soldiers and civil servants. Syrians rubbed shoulders with Gauls, the port was a veritable melting pot.

But its origins are far more ancient than that. Tradition says that it was founded by Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome (c. 620 BC), and undoubtedly the settlement’s origins are very ancient indeed, and inextricably linked to those of Rome itself. Like Rome, Ostia’s initial foundation depended on the presence of salt marshes by the coast. The valuable preservative was brought up the river and Rome was born where the river was fordable, providing a trading crossroads.

A visit to Ostia provides an opportunity to explore a Roman city in its entirety, and allows a glimpse of everyday life. The scale is quite different from the vast buildings of state of the Forum in the Big Smoke; it’s all more human.

There are smart and not-so-smart apartment buildings, as well as the overgrown remains of merchants’ villas. The city’s theatre (capacity c. 2500) looks over the piazza of the Corporations, a sort of ancient Wall Street, where the floor mosaics give clues to what sort of trading went on here.

Temples dedicated to Roman and foreign gods alike rub up against bath complexes, and the ethnic mix of the Empire is reflected in Ostia’s religious buildings; as well as temples to the Apollo and Augustus, there is a Synagogue and several temples to the cult of Mithras.

One can play barman at the thermopolium – an ancient snack bar – and even visit an ancient public lavatory. It’s a site that children adore, perfect for hands-on exploring behind overgrown walls, and it won’t require a dawn start. And in the hot summer months after a morning at the excavations hop back on the train and carry on down the line to Ostia Lido for a plate of spaghetti alle vongole and a dip. Now doesn’t that sound nicer than a day negotiating train timetables?

Author’s bio: Agnes Crawford is a licensed Rome guide, and has a MA in Architectural History from Edinburgh University. She runs Understanding Rome and offers tailor-made tours of Rome and environs, including Ostia Antica.