Trajan's hexagon is surrounded to the north and east, behind sides I-II-III, by storage buildings. The remains of the so-called Horrea-baths [15] (H on the plan below) are situated to the north of the Shipsheds (C-G), in an area where the basins of Claudius and Trajan almost meet. The area is crossed by a modern road and a former part of the railway Rome-Fiumicino (the abandoned station Porto is nearby). Giuseppe Lugli, writing in 1935, provides a brief description, and suggests that the baths were originally a storage building from the Trajanic period. The building contained courtyards and was surrounded by a continuous wall, having a few doors only on the west side. In a later phase it was rebuilt to baths with hypocausts and heating pipes.
Map with the location of the Horrea-baths (H). C and G are the Shipsheds. Map: Portus Project.Almost nothing can today be seen of the horrea close to the hexagon. In the 1550's Antonio Labacco wrote: "Then there were the warehouses, which at present are so destroyed that although in one place we see certain signs of a courtyard, and in another certain signs of stairs, none the less being so ruined, they cannot be perfectly understood". On the plan published by Rodolfo Lanciani in 1868 horrea can be seen almost directly behind sides I, II and III of the hexagon, all with the same plan: long rows of rooms that are back-to-back, separated by a street or corridor. The geophysical research carried out by the Portus Project points in the same direction.
The horrea along the hexagon on Lanciani's plan from 1868.
As published by John Murray, A Handbook of Rome and its Environs, 1881 (full plan).Behind side I Lugli reports lateral walls that are nine meters apart [30-31]. The masonry is opus mixtum. The horrea behind side II [32] flanked a Temple of Liber Pater / Bacchus (see "Temple of Liber Pater, Forum Vinarium and Torlonia relief"). A small building [18] was situated at the corner of sides I and II of the hexagon, but at some distance from the basin. There are two rows of three rooms with wide doors, flanking a west-east running corridor. The latericium walls have two rows of bipedales that were painted red. The building also had a porticus with stone columns. It is assigned by Lugli to the Severan period. In late antiquity it was incorporated in the city wall, as a tower.
Aerial view of the remains of building 18, on the Torlonia property. Photo: Bing Maps.A building behind side III [34], to the north-east of the Internal city wall, is called a warehouse by Lugli, who dates the brickwork to the Severan period. On Lanciani's plan it is called Diversorium, so an inn, a lodging-house. Guido Calza excavated a few rooms at the west end of the warehouse to the south-west of the Internal city wall [35-36] (this is also where tombs [36A] were found). Raised floors (suspensurae) were found.
Plan and view from the west of the rooms excavated by Guido Calza in 1925. Calza 1925, figs. 2-3. The raised floors of the warehouse investigated by Calza point to the storage of grain. Lanciani suggests that the warehouse along side II was used for storing wine, because a Temple of Liber Pater was located in the centre of that side.
Four laws in the Codex Theodosianus deal with the storage buildings in Portus. Translated by Clyde Pharr:
15.1.12 - Nish, June 8th 364 AD; addressed to Symmachus.
We have learned that fiscal storehouses in the City of Rome and also in the Port have been converted to private uses. You shall take care to restore such storehouses to their former condition. Grain must not be stored in the lower stories of such storehouses, for it is spoiled by the nature of the place and the moisture. If any persons, to the public detriment, have dared to appropriate the food supplies that were anciently assigned to the storehouses, you shall compel them to restore them, and you shall direct that the substance of such supplies shall go to the benefit of the treasury of the people of Rome. Of course, you shall compel those persons whom you find to be authors of the destruction of buildings to make necessary restoration.
14.15.4 - Milan, April 12th 398 AD; addressed to Flavius Mallius Theodorus, Praefectus Praetorio.
Moreover, by a similar punishment those persons shall be constrained who have dared to vindicate for themselves, as though by private possession, any supplies from the State storehouses or the small storerooms which are established within the City of Rome and the Port and which are held under the control of the breadmakers.
14.23.1 - Altinum, March 27th 400 AD; addressed to Messala, Praefectus Praetorio.
Patrons of the State storehouses of the Port. We decree that patrons of the State storehouses of the Port shall be in charge of the administration for only one year. All surreptitious devices shall cease, and the accounts of the old issue of public supplies shall never be inserted in the account of the new supplies. No person shall fraudulently usurp for himself the administration of the State storehouses of the Port beyond the statutory time limit, unless the account of the previous year has been deducted beforehand and he should be chosen for another year, on the ground that he is faithful and responsible.
14.4.9 - Ravenna, December 26th 417 AD; addressed to Palladius, Praefectus Praetorio.
In order to eliminate the fraudulent practices of the patrons of the raftsmen and the thievery of the grain measurers of the port, one of the patrons shall be selected by common consent of the whole guild, and he shall undertake the custody of the port stores for a period of five years. He shall send a secret sample to his colleagues, in order that the hidden fraud of the shippers, men of the worst quality, may not change any of the supplies in kind. To this patron We grant the reward that if with the most excellent trustworthiness he should administer this compulsory public service that is enjoined upon him, after the completion of the term of five years of administration he shall be honored with the rank of count of the third order, and he shall not obtain this rank from Our imperial letters patent but from the indulgence contained in this constitution. If he should be apprehended in fraud, he shall forfeit his patrimony and also be recalled to the lowest services of breadmaking.Two fragments of inscriptions from Portus, found near and in the Christian Basilica, mention warehouses. In the first, reference is made to "ancient times". The second may have mentioned Lucius Turcius Apronianus Asterius, Praefectus Urbis Romae in the years 362-364 AD, who is known to have taken measures to regulate the food-supply of Rome:
[---] HORREOR[um? ---]
[---] ANTIQVITV[s ---][--- h]ORREA [---]
[---]TERI[---]Rome, Villa Albani. EDR150146. Nuzzo 2013, 499 EP2. Sources
See in the online bubliography the keyword "Portus - buildings - storage buildings" and: Lanciani 1868, 178-181; Calza 1925, 58-60; Lugli-Filibeck 1935, 90-93, 101-103; Keay et al. 2005, 75, 106-107, 112-113; Bukowiecki et al. 2018, 21-22.
