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Studies in the Social and Economic History of Ostia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Frederick H. Wilson
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Extract

The first of these Studies was concerned chiefly with the history of Ostia during the period when the city was still growing and its prosperity increasing. Even so, during the period already considered, the prosperity of Ostia, though real, was to this extent artificial, in that it depended upon factors over which the citizens themselves had no control. Ostia was the port of Rome, and nothing else, and in consequence any lowering of the standard of living in, or reduction of imports into the capital city must have had immediate and marked repercussions upon her prosperity. She even lacked to a great extent those reserves of wealth which in other cities might be drawn upon to tide over bad times. The typical citizen of Ostia came to the city in the hope of making his fortune there; but when he had made it, he usually preferred to retire to some more pleasant town, such as Tibur, Tusculum, Velitrae, or Rome itself, where he could enjoy his leisure. Few families seem to have remained in the city for more than two, or, at the most, three generations. Whilst therefore fortunes were made in Ostia, wealth was not accumulated there.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 14 , November 1938 , pp. 152 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1938

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References

* ‘Studies in the Social and Economic History of Ostia: Part I,’ in Papers of the British School at Rome, xiii, 41–68.

1 Op. cit., 59–60.

2 The exceptions were the P. Lucilii and the C. Nasennii, and possibly also the M. Acilii and the Egrilii. It is not certain, however, that the two latter families did not live in Rome during the second century, even though some connexion with the colony, perhaps an estate in its neighbourhood, is indicated by the fact that tituli of many of their freedmen and of their descendants have survived.

3 CIL xiv, 375. (During the remainder of this paper inscriptions in CIL xiv will be referred to by number alone.)

4 367.

5 Cf. 325, 352, 431.

6 Papers of the British School at Rome, xiii, 61.

7 459. No cognomen is given, and it is therefore possible, if improbable, that the curator in question was not Aufidius Fortis himself, but a freedman of his, or even another member of his family.

8 4621; cf. 303, etc.

9 375, 376, 172 (add).

10 Papers of the British School at Rome, xiii, 52–3.

11 4560–4563.

12 Eight tituli of this period are datable; in three (5322, 4617, 299) the member of the order is styled Augustalis, in three (4486a, 5328, 297) sevir Augustalis, in one (8) curator Augustalium, and in one (33) the phrase sevir Aug{ustalis) id(em) q(uin)q(uennalis) is used.

13 367; 333; 421; 396; 4671; 380; 418; 330; 305; 360; 361. The two last are datable approximately by the fact that they are of the period of the fasti.

14 Perhaps in only one titulus of the period is the reference to the office of quinquennalis proper. This is 305 (A.D. 239) in which the phrase used is sevir Augustalis curator et quinquennalis, the order in which the offices are named probably being intended to emphasise the fact that he was quinquennalis proper. In two other inscriptions (421; 396) the phrase used is sevir Augustalis idem quinquennalis et curator.

15 4560.

18 367.

19 In the small horrea at the south-eastern corner of the so-called Darsena.

20 At the Port a Marina.

21 Water tanks were inserted.

22 Vit. Comm. 17. 7.

23 Vit. Pertin. 7. 6.

24 Vit. Sept. 23.2.

25 E.g. in A.D. 195 the fabri navales Portenses were already separated from the fabri navales Ostienses (xiv, 168–9).

26 Strabo, 5, 3, 5, 231 C.

27 Briggs, in Memoirs of the American Academy, vol. viii, p. 161. His sole reason for dating the building to this period is his belief, for which there seems no good reason, that it was copied from the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato. Granted certain similarities between the two buildings, it is not impossible that the designs of both were based upon some original which has not survived.

28 They are of an average width of 3·6 cm. Probably both in this building and in the theatre a consignment of older bricks was used in the inner walls.

29 Two peculiarities in the building materials of this temple exist, which, however, afford us no clue to its date. (i) The bricks of the interior walls are of a length noticeably shorter than that of the average Roman brick. But length of brick cannot be used as a criterion during this period, or during any period, unless there is reason to believe that old bricks were being re-used. A consignment of short bricks was probably used deliberately, because the temple was round and contained many niches. It is quite certain that bricks were not being re-used, (ii) Two small sections of the podium are faced with tufa blocks from an earlier building, probably the ‘House with the Impluvium’ (cf. PBSR xiii, 47, n. 4), instead of with bricks. This facing is undoubtedly original, and cannot be a later patch. It is, so far as the writer knows, unique, but there appears to be no reason why it should not date from the age of the Severans. It is noticeable that, as was often the case in temples, less care was taken in the construction of the podium walls than in those of the temple proper. A parallel example of the use of old material in the facing of a wall of the Severan period (though in this case in a wall of little importance) is to be found in the so-called Little Market.

30 The presence of a string-course on the eastern side of the podium adjoining the House with the Atrium proves conclusively that the Temple was earlier than the second period of the House with the Atrium. But the concrete used in the second period of this house is typically Severan.

31 Viz., two shops on the Street of the Triclinia and two on the unnamed street which led from the continuation of the Street of the Mills to the south of the Decumanus to the side of the Baths by the Forum. The two latter shops were admittedly used again by the Romans at a very late period; but it is certain that they had already collapsed before they were so re-used, since blocks of wall from the upper part of the building were used to repair walls of the lower part. The writer suggests that the collapse was caused by the giving way of the vaulted roof of the adjoining Baths by the Forum which necessitated the construction of the large buttress. In that case these shops had not only passed out of use but were already in ruins at the time when the buttress was built. The facing of the buttress is of good quality, and it probably dates from the first half of the third century.

32 N.S. 1921, 360.

33 N.S. 1909, 89. No trace of the vaulting of this portico was found when it was excavated.

34 Mon. Ant. xxvi, 1920, 321Google Scholar.

35 N.S. 1914, 252.

36 N.S. 1915, 249.

37 4721.

38 Several of its piers were refaced.

39 The two thermal establishments near the Porta Marina, the baths of the ‘Imperial Palace,’ the Baths by the Forum, the Baths on the Decumanus and the Baths of the so-called Magazzini Repubblicani (vide Papers of the British School at Rome, xiii, 77–87) all show signs of one or more restorations during the third century. In four of these six establishments the restorations were very extensive.

40 134.

41 135.

42 It is probable that this is the ‘restoration’ referred to in xiv, 5387, and described as (omni sple)ndore excultam ad usum populi.

43 Maurice, Numismatique Constantinienne, pp. 263–289.

44 SHA. Aurel. 45. The hundred columns which the Emperor Tacitus presented to Ostia (SHA. Tac. 10) may well have been intended for the adornment of this forum.

45 Until further excavation has been undertaken it will be impossible to determine how far third-century facing represents new building activity at Porto, how far merely the restoration of existing buildings. In any case it is clear that the various buildings continued in use down to a comparatively late period. Except in the so-called ImperialPalace very little facing of the period of Trajan is to be seen.

46 231.

47 The series of dedications to Emperors and members of the Imperial family found in die Augusteum of the barracks of the vigiles comes to an end with that of Gordian.

48 The date of the constitution of Porto as a separate town cannot now seriously be questioned. The name ‘Portus Romae’ is first known to have been used in A.D. 314, whilst one inscription uses the phrase ‘Civitas Constantiniana’ (xiv, 4449). Cf. Paschetto, p. 81.