June 14

Today we took a day trip outside of Rome to the port of Ostia Antica. Ostia Antica was a working port town, and today you can even see the warehouses, apartments, mansions, shopping centers, the 2,000 year old theater, and baths that were once part of the active port of around 60,000 people. What we saw today was an excavated city that once was very active.

Ostia Antica is located at the mouth of the Tiber and was founded in about 620 B.C. As Rome was beginning to expand, Ostia was conquered and a fort was built there. It then turned into a naval base so Rome would be protected by invasion via the river. The importance of the base turned from military to commercial to around A.D 150 when Rome controlled the Mediterranean. Ostia Antica remained a busy center and big businesses would come and there were millions of Romans. As Rome fell, however, the port became abandoned and the Tiber retreated to about a mile away because the harbor sited up.

I would say that my favorite part was seeing the baths of neptune. In the Baths of Neptune, you can see a mosaic with Neptune riding four horses through the sea. There also is cupid riding the dolphin which looked nice, but the sea itself looked pretty frightening. Although not all of the mosaic is still in tact, it is amazing that so much of it is still in pretty good condition.