page_title: Ostia Antica
section_title: Late-Roman and sub-Roman Ostia
hierarchical_section_title: Ostia Antica / History / Late-Roman and sub-Roman Ostia
caption_attribution_description: English: Basilica di Sant'Aurea
context_page_description: Ostia Antica is a large archaeological site, close to the modern town of Ostia, that is the location of the harbour city of ancient Rome, 15 miles southwest of Rome. "Ostia" is a derivation of "os", the Latin word for "mouth". At the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was Rome's seaport, but due to silting the site now lies 3 kilometres from the sea. The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics.
context_section_description: Ostia grew to 50,000 inhabitants in the 2nd century, reaching a peak of some 100,000 inhabitants in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.
  Ostia became an episcopal see as part of the Diocesi of Rome as early as the 3rd century AD; the cathedral (titulus) of Santa Aurea being located on the burial site of St Monica, mother of Augustine; she died here in 387 in a house property of the Diocesi of Rome.
  In time mercantile activities became focused on Portus instead. For scholars of the High Empire Ostia was the seaside version of Rome, the city of apartment buildings. It used to be thought that the city entered a period of slow decline after Constantine I made Portus a municipality, Ostia thereby ceasing to be an active port and instead becoming a popular country retreat for rich aristocrats from Rome. In spite of the fact that Portus shows substantial growth in the 4th century, the traditional view that Ostia went into marked decline has had to be revised due to recent excavations and re-evaluation of the evidence. The knocking down of some apartment blocks replaced by houses of the rich was "thought to have signalled the disappearance of Ostia's once-vibrant group of non-elite residents and labourers"..."recent research has suggested we take a more nuanced view of residential patterns and social demography in the Late Antique city". Earlier views of decay relied on fleeting references in the ancient sources and excavators ignoring evidence from the period that the town continued to thrive despite pockets of decay into the 6th century, "..life in Ostia ended not with a Vesuvian bang but with a whimper" after a slow decline from the 6th to the 9th centuries. 
  The city housed the headquarters of the Prefect of the Annona and his large staff. Although there are signs of decay in certain quarters, evidence indicates continued prosperity through fifth century, including: repairs on baths (26 remained in operation during the 4th century), public buildings, church construction, street repaving, residential and business expansion beyond the perimeter of the south wall (the presence of a small harbour, the Porta Marina on the sea, is attested), a huge 4th century villa located east of the Maritime baths, and the continued operation of the river port on the western edge of the town, the 'navalia', a squarish basin built in from the river, a warehouse on the east side and, behind it, a large bath complex, erroneously called the palazzo imperial. Numerous bathing establishments are recorded as still operating in the 4th and into the 5th centuries with major repairs of the center-city Neptune Baths in the 370s. 
  The city was mentioned by St Augustine when he passed there in the late 4th century. The poet Rutilius Namatianus reported the lack of maintenance of the city ports in 414 AD. This view has been challenged by Boin, who states Namatianus' verse is a literary construct and not consistent with the archaeological record, ibid. pp. 22, 25, (the poet was lamenting the lost greatness of Rome after the sack of 410 and was hoping for the rise again of the great city).
  After the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 (traditional date: Julius Nepos died 480 was the last legitimate emperor), Ostia fell slowly into decay as the population of Rome, 700-800,000 in A.D. 400 contracted to 200,000 or less in 500 A.D. The city was finally abandoned in the 9th century due to the repeated invasions and sackings by Arab pirates. A naval battle, the Battle of Ostia, was fought there in 849 between Christians and Saracens; the remaining inhabitants moved to Gregoriopolis a short distance away.
caption: Santa Aurea church.
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