Fire in the workshop
To the east of the House of Hercules, on the other side of the southern Cardo Maximus and to the south of the Baths of the Forum, is a small district with workshops: a small storage building (horrea), a tiny fullery (fullonica), and a very large bakery (pistrinum). The bakery (mill I,XIII,4) was excavated in February and March of 1940. The courtyard with piers showed traces of fire. The excavation report lists many bronze objects: numerous fragments of small and large vessels (including a head of Dionysus and other parts of the rim of a bronze cauldron), a bronze and silver table support with a female herm, decoration of furniture (including busts of Silenus and a Maenad), parts of five or six elaborate candelabra (one resting on three lion's paws), a lamp, spatulas, a compass, a tray with holes for roasting food, a support of a kitchen stove, a bell with an iron clapper (5 x 4.5 x 3.5 cm.), and an iron key. Two marble statuettes were found, one of Hercules. In a niche in the reticulate wall behind a cistern (room 8b, number a), a statuette of Venus was found with a mantle around the legs, the head and arms missing. It showed traces of "burning by the fire that had developed in this entire zone".
Plan of mill I,XIII,4.The diary does not provide further details, but it shows how enigmatic a situation can be during excavation. Maria Floriani Squarciapino does not believe that the objects belong to the bakery or a private house. She thinks that the cauldron with the head of Dionysus comes from a public building or temple, perhaps the temple of Isis. Her view does not seem to be supported by the ensemble. I prefer to think that the objects come, for the most part, from apartments above the shops along the flanking streets. The bell with clapper may have been attached to a millstone, to ring when the hopper was almost empty (bells were also found in the House of the Millstones in region I). The ground floor was partly cleaned up and the statuette of Venus, battered as it was, was placed back in the niche. After the fire only the western rooms may still have been used: they were partly rebuilt in the years 370-440 AD, when also a reinforcing pier was placed in a corner of the room behind the oven (room 7).
Bronze head of Dionysus, part of the rim of a bronze cauldron.
Photo: ICCD neg. E027159B.Reconstruction drawing of the cauldron.
Image: Floriani Squarciapino 1948, fig. 3.
Bronze and silver table support with female herm.
Photo: ICCD neg. E049926.Detail of the silver inlay on the herm.
Photo: Karivieri 2020, p. 120 fig. 12.
Bells, keys, a balance and compasses found in Ostia.
Photo: ICCD neg. E027269A and E027319.
