Introduction

My paper deals with women in Ostia, the harbour city of ancient Rome, and their activity in the religious life of this city before the Christianization of the Roman Empire. During the Early Imperial era, in particular, Ostia was characterized by its cosmopolitan population. This feature was largely due to the Imperial harbours built in the first century CE. They made Ostia the gateway for all kinds of goods to the capital of the Empire. People from all over the Roman world resided temporarily or permanently in Ostia and its neighbour Portus. The ethnically and socially varied population also meant there was a great variety of religious cults in Ostia. There were traditional cults dating back to the early history of the colony of Ostia and cults linked with the city of Rome. On the other hand, there were cults brought by the newcomers. It is worth asking what the role of religion in building one's identity was in this kind of urban environment. By the second century ce, freedmen had become a large, active, and influential social group in Ostia, visible in religious life, too. In this article, I am trying to find women's place in this multifaceted picture.

The main question of the paper is the role of religious activity in the construction of women's civic identity. By civic identity I mean the ways in which an individual understood their place and role in the community.