Ostia

Last Sunday, our class went to Ostia. Ostia was the Roman port since Rome itself is something like 16 miles from the shoreline. Cicero himself said this was probably a huge benefit to the city, since it got all the advantages of the trade possibilities inherent with being a seaport, without the all the detriments: towns on the sea were said to be the worst areas for the degradation of morals and depths of crime. Blame it on the sailors and the pimps. We read some Plautus describing how the "ladies of the night" in some cases even knew the names of the sailors before they entered the port in order to more easily seduce them and take all their money. The cities also usually had to deal with pirate ships selling and stealing wares before Rome granted Pompey huge powers in order to rid the Mediterranean of this particular scourge. Ostia used to be pretty much right near the mouth of the Tiber, but over the years changes in the landscape transformed the environment; in the 1500s there was a huge flood that washed away the Tiber's bed and moved it away from the city. Because some time during Tiberius' reign Ostia lost most of its importance with regard to trade, a lot of the city was abandoned and left in decently good shape. Mussolini's huge nationalistic attempts to rediscover Rome's history pumped huge amounts of cash into digging up Ostia, and because of that we can see what we see today. For the majority of buildings, only parts of the first floor survived. Some buildings were lucky and had parts of the second.

Ostia is a huge site. We were there for 9 hours and I don't think we covered all of it. We did see the majority of the interesting things. Ostia has a lot of the things one would think of when one plans a city: granary storage, small commercial buildings like market stalls, an amphitheater, big houses, crowded apartments, bath complexes, temples, butchers, et cetera. I really liked the floor mosaics. They were made of just black and white stones, but were pretty intricate for only being bichrome. One in the floor of a bar said something to the effect of "If you're thirsty, come here and drink!" with a big picture of a goblet. There were a lot of aquatic pictures too. The fish seller had pictures of different fish, the market stalls had elephants, dolphins, and people. The fireman's guild hand some great pictures of bull sacrifices.

Another thing I really liked was the Mithraeum. It's an underground temple where the citizens would worship Mithras, an Eastern god. Not a lot of solid information exists, but it's known that it was an initiatory order that was highly accepted by soldiers and lesser nobles until paganism's outlaw by Theodosius in 394. The key things accepted about the cult are that it arose either in Persia or Asia Minor and has something to do with Mithras when he sacrifices a bull. I've attached a photo of the Mithraeum in Ostia that's kind of misleading. It looks larger and lighter than it actually is. It's small and dank, especially for a tall guy like me. The statue of Mithras has lost its hand with the dagger.



After a great lunch with the whole group, we went through a hotel and bath complex where it's thought (almost certainly) that St. Augustine stayed and his mother Monica died. This is a pivotal part of the Confessions since Monica played a key role in Augustine's conversion to Catholicism. Her death really struck Augustine hard and he shows it in his writing, ending his book with a plea for everyone who reads it to remember and pray for his mother. We read the section dealing with her death in the courtyard in which it happened. Very eerie, but very cool.

This weekend we'll be celebrating the Holy Day of Peter and Paul, the patrons of Rome. Should be an interesting experience; the whole city is supposed to shut down. I'm off to do some reading before class. Ciao!