The story of this place
Founded as Rome's seaport at the mouth of the Tiber, Ostia grew into a bustling city of 50,000 that unloaded the grain, wine, and oil feeding the capital's million inhabitants. Its remarkably preserved streets reveal multi-storey apartment blocks (insulae), warehouses, a theatre seating 4,000, communal latrines, and the Square of the Corporations where 60 shipping guilds advertised in mosaic. Bakeries still hold their millstones; a firefighters' barracks and dozens of taverns survive. As Rome declined and the harbour silted, Ostia was slowly abandoned by the 9th century, then buried in sand and mud that preserved it. Its ruins give an unmatched picture of everyday Roman urban life.