THE LESSON OF OSTIA — I
By Hope Bagenal.
(Bernard Webb Student at the British School at Rome. )
The lesson of Ostia is briefly that the Romans in a commercial age made bricks and used bricks much
more intelligently than we do in the year of grace 1927.
Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, was the port and chief exchange for foodstuffs
of Rome, and grew under
Hadrian to great wealth and importance. The feeding of the metropolis, with its popu
lation of nearly a million,
necessitated the building of wharves, shipping agencies, merchants ’ offices, warehouses, a residential quarter:
these in turn required a fire brigade, a public baths, a theatre, a palæstra or openair gymnasium, restaurants, and in addition places of worship and burial. The planning of these upon cer
tain lines was set by the bend of the Tiber, and by the line of an old road to Rome from the salt marshes and from an
ancient landing-place. A complete commercial city, with its departments and the
reason and history of its existence, lay buried for cen
turies under debris of river
floods and of its own upper storeys.
Now all is in process of excavation under the direc
tion of the experienced Doctor Guido Calza, and anyone can go out by train from Rome and spend in its quiet streets
and gardens as many leisurely hours as he pleases.
It is tempting to compare
the cheerful red-brick walls of Ostia, scoured by salt breezes, to the lava rubbles of Pompeii, where the cus
todi still glance nervously over their shoulders at slowsmoking Vesuvius. By such comparison we might get
at the special character of Ostia. The spirit in both cities is half alive in the half shapes, compelling an architect to positive moods, arousing in him fear, admiration, dislike. Many persons in the past have
seen the ancient world through Pompeii alone — seen it through the atrium doors between the painted columns, through its bastard art, its gaieties and improprieties. Pompeii reveals, indeed, that cosmopoli
tan Hellenistic world which remained always the largest part of Roman civili
sation, but which the specific Latin genius ordered and made capable of self-preserva
tion. But in Ostia we see the Latin genius in its char
acteristic forms, upon its peculiar soil, and intent upon
activities that have become European. Another ancient world comes to view — a world like our own founded on com
merce, and occupied with the urgent demands of a huge urban population relying on sea-borne supplies. The tech
nique that gave that popula
tion its superb and typically Roman buildings is well illus
trated at Ostia. Let us glance
first at some characteristic buildings.
The people of Ostia lived in “flats, ” not in “houses. ”
With two exceptions (so far excavated) the dwellings are not the Pompeian peristylar
house (domus), but blocks of flats (insulæ), three or four floors in height, with windows and balconies on the streets like modern Italian dwellings, and containing sets of apartments having separate stair
cases and entrances on the street (Fig. 1). This illus
tration shows the selce (hard
lava) paving of the street, much as it is used in Rome to-day, the brick footway, the travertine threshold and stairway leading upwards.
Good reconstructions of these buildings by Gismondi can be seen in Dr. Ashby’s new edition of Anderson and Spier’s Architecture of Rome. The balconies cor
belled out on groins can be seen in Pig. 2. These insulœ must have been handsome buildings of a height
not generally seen in those times in Mediterranean Fig. 1. — OSTIA: ENTRANCE TO ONE OF THE
“INSULÆ” OR BLOCKS OF FLATS.
Fig. 2. — OSTIA: ONE OF THE ˮINSULÆ” KNOWN AS THE
CASA DI DIANA.
Fig. 3. — OSTIA: PORTICO OF THE GUILDS.Fig. 5. — OSTIA: STAIRCASE IN
THE HORREA EPAGATHIANA
By Hope Bagenal.
(Bernard Webb Student at the British School at Rome. )
The lesson of Ostia is briefly that the Romans in a commercial age made bricks and used bricks much
more intelligently than we do in the year of grace 1927.
Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, was the port and chief exchange for foodstuffs
of Rome, and grew under
Hadrian to great wealth and importance. The feeding of the metropolis, with its popu
lation of nearly a million,
necessitated the building of wharves, shipping agencies, merchants ’ offices, warehouses, a residential quarter:
these in turn required a fire brigade, a public baths, a theatre, a palæstra or openair gymnasium, restaurants, and in addition places of worship and burial. The planning of these upon cer
tain lines was set by the bend of the Tiber, and by the line of an old road to Rome from the salt marshes and from an
ancient landing-place. A complete commercial city, with its departments and the
reason and history of its existence, lay buried for cen
turies under debris of river
floods and of its own upper storeys.
Now all is in process of excavation under the direc
tion of the experienced Doctor Guido Calza, and anyone can go out by train from Rome and spend in its quiet streets
and gardens as many leisurely hours as he pleases.
It is tempting to compare
the cheerful red-brick walls of Ostia, scoured by salt breezes, to the lava rubbles of Pompeii, where the cus
todi still glance nervously over their shoulders at slowsmoking Vesuvius. By such comparison we might get
at the special character of Ostia. The spirit in both cities is half alive in the half shapes, compelling an architect to positive moods, arousing in him fear, admiration, dislike. Many persons in the past have
seen the ancient world through Pompeii alone — seen it through the atrium doors between the painted columns, through its bastard art, its gaieties and improprieties. Pompeii reveals, indeed, that cosmopoli
tan Hellenistic world which remained always the largest part of Roman civili
sation, but which the specific Latin genius ordered and made capable of self-preserva
tion. But in Ostia we see the Latin genius in its char
acteristic forms, upon its peculiar soil, and intent upon
activities that have become European. Another ancient world comes to view — a world like our own founded on com
merce, and occupied with the urgent demands of a huge urban population relying on sea-borne supplies. The tech
nique that gave that popula
tion its superb and typically Roman buildings is well illus
trated at Ostia. Let us glance
first at some characteristic buildings.
The people of Ostia lived in “flats, ” not in “houses. ”
With two exceptions (so far excavated) the dwellings are not the Pompeian peristylar
house (domus), but blocks of flats (insulæ), three or four floors in height, with windows and balconies on the streets like modern Italian dwellings, and containing sets of apartments having separate stair
cases and entrances on the street (Fig. 1). This illus
tration shows the selce (hard
lava) paving of the street, much as it is used in Rome to-day, the brick footway, the travertine threshold and stairway leading upwards.
Good reconstructions of these buildings by Gismondi can be seen in Dr. Ashby’s new edition of Anderson and Spier’s Architecture of Rome. The balconies cor
belled out on groins can be seen in Pig. 2. These insulœ must have been handsome buildings of a height
not generally seen in those times in Mediterranean Fig. 1. — OSTIA: ENTRANCE TO ONE OF THE
“INSULÆ” OR BLOCKS OF FLATS.
Fig. 2. — OSTIA: ONE OF THE ˮINSULÆ” KNOWN AS THE
CASA DI DIANA.
Fig. 3. — OSTIA: PORTICO OF THE GUILDS.Fig. 5. — OSTIA: STAIRCASE IN
THE HORREA EPAGATHIANA