Ostian Road Take Me Home


Jake G

Is my title clickbatey? Well if you were expecting a remake of the song "Take me home, country roads," by John Denver then yes. Am I going to stop making cheesy jokes with Roman roads? No.


To be fair, there is an argument to be made that Ostian roads took people home. Ostia was and still is the port town of Rome. Many people and resources have departed from their journey on the sea by stepping onto a road in Ostia to begin their final leg of their journey to Rome. I find the notion of travelling merchants or legionnaires arriving by ship from the end of a long campaign on the fringes of the empire to be a pretty sight. Oh, the stories that people must have told at the taverns along the streets of Ostia after concluding their sea voyages.


A street of Ostia. By Jake G

Take a moment to look at how well this road appears to be preserved. This is the same road that would have been subject to Rome's 70 million units of grain each year that were transported from the mills of Ostia to the heart of Rome (Giovanni Vitelli 58). 


Wheel imprints in the bassalt rocks. By Jake G

As you know I am always thrilled to see evidence of carts and wagons on the roads of each location I go to. It speaks to the economic power that a settlement had by showing us evidence of wagons that would have been transporting goods to and from the market. Essentially the more an ancient Roman road is market up by wagon wheels, the more commercial activity it had.

  

Street view leading into shops and residences. By Jake G

As you can see the inner roads of Ostia antica are worse for wear. Regardless, touring in and out of various streets and seeing the various shops and apartments was fantastic. One of the professors accompanying our trip mentioned how the apartments we were passing had shops on the ground level, something that is making a comeback in modern times.


Me standing behind a millstone at the house of Silvanus. By Jake G

The last thing ill point out about Ostia is that the millhouses actually used the same materials as the roads themselves. This is because horses or mules turned the catilus (top part) that grinded against the meta (bottom part) of the millstone (Jon Theo Bakker, 2001).

 Imprints from horsehooves. By Jake G

This was taken inside of the mill of Silvanus, but as stated earlier the material composition is the exact same of the roads in Ostia. Therefore, this gives us an insight on what horseshoes did to bassalt rock on a prolonged basis where the horse/mule walked a consistent path.




All in all, the roads of Ostia antica really impressed me. Though I may be partial to this since I love the modern city of Ostia from spending my time there during my first week in Italy.

Bibliography

Bakker, Jan Theo. “The mills-bakeries of Ostia.” Ostia Antica. Accessed June 21, 2024. The mills-bakeries of Ostia (ostia-antica.org).

Vitelli, Giovanni “Grain storage and Urban Growth in Imperial Ostia: A Quantitative Study.” World Archaeology 12. (1980): 54-68. https://www.jstor.org/stable/124450.

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