Imperial Ostia and Portus in ancient texts

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The two harbours

Around 100 AD Trajan started work on an additional harbour, centred around a large hexagonal basin. From now on however we read little about the harbour in the literary sources. This is due to a large extent by the absence of works such as the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius and the Histories and Annals by Tacitus. Pliny the Younger speaks in general terms about the work at the mouth of the Tiber and other places by Trajan. In the Panegyricus, an oration delivered in 100 AD, he says:

Herein he [Pompeius] proved himself no finer than our father [Trajan], who in his wisdom and authority and devotion to the people has opened roads, built harbours, created routes overland, let the sea into the shore and moved the shore out to sea, and linked far distant peoples by trade so that natural products in any place now seem to belong to all.

In Ostia and Portus eleven statues and busts of Trajan have been found. One colossal bust must come from the Tempio Rotondo.
One statue provided the name for the building in which it was found: Schola del Traiano.
A posthumous colossal head, now in the Vatican, belongs to a statue that once overlooked the hexagon.

The statue of Trajan from the Schola del Traiano.
Traces of polychromy were seen on the harness.
Photo: Wikimedia, Sailko.

A posthumous portrait of Trajan in the Vatican (Museo Chiaramonti).
It belongs to a colossal statue that once overlooked the hexagonal basin of Portus.
Photo: Wikimedia, Carole Raddato.

In one of his letters Pliny discusses Tiber floods and mentions a canal dug by Trajan:

To Macrinus.

The Tiber has overflowed its bed and deeply flooded its lower banks, so that although it is being drained by the canal cut by the Emperor, with his usual foresight, it is filling the valleys and inundating the fields, and wherever there is level ground there is nothing to be seen but water.

In another letter, written in his villa in Tusculum (near Frascati), he discusses the low water table of the Tiber in summer and autumn.

To Domitius Apollinaris.

The meadows are bright with flowers, covered with trefoil and other delicate plants which always seem soft and fresh, for everything is fed by streams which never run dry; though the ground is not marshy where the water collects, because of its downward slope, so that any surplus water it cannot absorb is drained off into the river Tiber flowing through the fields. The river is navigable, so that all produce is conveyed to Rome by boat, but only in winter and spring - in summer its level falls and its dry bed has to give up its claim to the title of a great river until the following autumn.

Goods arrived in the harbours during the sailing season, spring and summer, known as mare apertum. It seems then that the goods could only be taken from the harbours to Rome with great difficulty in this period. This would necessitate large warehouses in the harbours, where the goods were kept until they could be taken upstream by tow boats in fall and winter, the mare clausum.

Remains at Tusculum in a photo taken in 1861.
Photo: Wikimedia, Augurmm.

In the Historia Augusta some work by Antoninus Pius is mentioned:

Of the public works that were constructed by him the following remain today: the temple of Hadrian at Rome, so called in honour of his father, the Graecostadium, restored by him after its burning, the Amphitheatre, repaired by him, the tomb of Hadrian, the temple of Agrippa, and the Pons Sublicius, also the Pharus, the port at Caieta, and the port at Tarracina, all of which he restored, the bath at Ostia, the aqueduct at Antium, and the temples at Lanuvium.

With the Pharus the lighthouse of Portus must be meant, not the one in Alexandria, because all other sites are in Italy. From an inscription we know that the bath must be the Terme di Porta Marina, close to the beach.

In Ostia six busts of Antoninus Pius were unearthed. One colossal bust must come from the Tempio Rotondo.

A portrait of Antoninus Pius found in the south part of Ostia.
Photo: Wikimedia, Sailko.

Portus and the lighthouse on a coin struck by Commodus
in 189 AD. Photo: Wikimedia.

In Ostia and Portus eleven statues and busts of Trajan have been found. One colossal bust must come from the Tempio Rotondo. One statue provided the name for the building in which it was found: Schola del Traiano. A posthumous colossal head, now in the Vatican, belongs to a statue that once overlooked the hexagon.
The statue of Trajan from the Schola del Traiano. Traces of polychromy were seen on the harness. Photo: Wikimedia, Sailko.	A posthumous portrait of Trajan in the Vatican (Museo Chiaramonti). It belongs to a colossal statue that once overlooked the hexagonal basin of Portus. Photo: Wikimedia, Carole Raddato.

In Ostia six busts of Antoninus Pius were unearthed. One colossal bust must come from the Tempio Rotondo.
A portrait of Antoninus Pius found in the south part of Ostia. Photo: Wikimedia, Sailko.	Portus and the lighthouse on a coin struck by Commodus in 189 AD. Photo: Wikimedia.