{"id":6410,"date":"2026-01-09T15:05:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/pannelli-didattici-e-mappe\/pannelli-generali\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:13:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:13:00","slug":"general-panels","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/educational-panels-and-maps\/general-panels\/","title":{"rendered":"General panels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Its proximity to the mouth of the Tiber and the coastal salt pans were the\u00a0main factors leading to the birth and development of Ostia (from the Latin\u00a0ostium<\/em>, \u201criver mouth\u201d), first with a strategic military function and later\u00a0playing a predominantly commercial role.<\/p>\n

The literary tradition ascribes the\u00a0foundation of the city to the fourth king of Rome, Ancus Marcius (ca.\u00a0640-616 BC), but the earliest remains belong to the fortified settlement\u00a0(castrum<\/em>) of the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0century BC Roman colony. The settlement gradually\u00a0expanded outside the walls of the\u00a0castrum<\/em>\u00a0and this entailed the need to\u00a0build a new, larger wall circuit in the 1st<\/sup>\u00a0century BC.<\/p>\n

The city was arranged\u00a0around the pre-existing streets of the\u00a0Cardo<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Decumanus<\/em>, and the\u00a0Forum was built where they crossed. The construction and later\u00a0enlargement of the maritime port at\u00a0Portus<\/em>, between the periods of Claudius\u00a0(AD 42) and Trajan (ca. AD 110), boosted Ostia\u2019s role as Rome\u2019s commercial\u00a0harbour. The resulting economic and demographic development led to an extraordinary residential and monumental construction boom that\u00a0completely renewed the city\u2019s appearance in accordance with specific\u00a0urban planning policy between the late 1st<\/sup>\u00a0and early 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0century AD.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0the mid-3rd<\/sup>\u00a0century AD onwards, in part as the result of a more generalized\u00a0crisis in the Empire, Ostia began to decline, leading to the slow and gradual\u00a0abandonment of large areas of the city, even in the centre; here, however,\u00a0some luxurious\u00a0domus<\/em>\u00a0(houses) were installed over earlier residential\u00a0complexes. The coastal zone, gravitating around the Via Severiana next to\u00a0the sea, retained its vitality for longer.<\/p>\n

In around the mid-6th<\/sup>\u00a0century, Ostia\u00a0must have been in a general state of abandonment; the population moved\u00a0immediately inland, around the church of St Aurea, where the new fortified\u00a0settlement of Gregoriopoli sprang up in the 9th<\/sup>\u00a0century.<\/p>\n

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Its proximity to the mouth of the Tiber and the coastal salt pans were the\u00a0main factors leading to the birth and development of Ostia (from the Latin\u00a0ostium, \u201criver mouth\u201d), first with a strategic military function and later\u00a0playing a predominantly commercial role. The literary tradition ascribes the\u00a0foundation of the city to the fourth king of Rome,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":6408,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-albero.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6410","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6420,"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6410\/revisions\/6420"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}