Introduction

Visitors of Ostia who follow the main streets will see for the most part shops. Even after entering a building, it is not unusual to find out that shops surround a courtyard. The shops were studied in some detail for the first time by Giancarla Girri ("La taberna nel quadro urbanistico e sociale di Ostia", Roma 1956). Recently a leap forward was made by Julien Schoevaert ("Les Boutiques d'Ostie du Ier s. av. J.-C. au Ve ap. J.-C.: L'économie urbaine au quotidien", Rome 2018, with a catalogue).

Map of Ostia with indication of shops.
Schoevaert 2018, Pl. I.

The shops are deep, rectangular rooms. They have a characteristic threshold, with a long groove in which vertical shutters could be slid, and with a depression for a door, usually on the right side seen from the street. In a corner in the back may be a small masonry podium with a few steps. It supported a ladder leading to a hatch in the ceiling and an upper floor, presumably used as habitation.

A shop in the House of the Lararium (I,IX,3).
The threshold has a groove for wooden shutters. In the back part, to the right, is a small masonry podium with steps that supported a ladder.
A door in the back wall, partially blocked, leads to another shop, with which this one is back-to-back. Travertine corbels supported the ceiling.
Photo: Daniel González Acuña.

In most shops there is not a single clue to help us in establishing what was being sold. Bars however can be recognized by the presence of bar counters behind which the personnel was standing. The counters are usually right behind the threshold, so that people could also be served without having to enter the room. Some fish shops can be identified on the basis of depictions in mosaics (fishes and fishermen), and the presence of marble basins. Shops in the facade of a bakery must have been used for the sale of bread. Unfortunately, hundreds of shops are empty shells, sometimes with a storage jar sunk into the floor, a little oven, or with a groove in a wall in which a shelf was inserted.

A bar in the House of the Millstones (I,III,1).

We would love to know not just what was sold in which shop, but also whether the same commodity was sometimes sold in a row of shops, a familiar sight in the medinas of North African cities. And what was the relation between the shopkeepers and the people who owned or rented out shops? When it comes to workshops, we are doing much better. Many bakeries and fulleries have been recognized. Still, there are many clusters of rooms that seem to have been used as workshops, witness for example the presence of water basins, but remain anonymous. In the future, further careful observations and perhaps a stroke of luck may provide more answers.

Luckily the Romans often depicted the interior of shops and workshops on reliefs. Some of these were shop signs, others are found in a funerary context, on a sarcophagus for example. Quite a few such reliefs have been found in Ostia and Portus. It is a bit disappointing that they are usually presented by scholars as some sort of visual footnotes only. Here we present them as a group.

The first study of these reliefs was written by Guido Calza: "Arti e mestieri in Ostia Antica" (Capitolium 11,8-9, 413-423). The terracotta reliefs were published by Maria Floriani Squarciapino: "Piccolo corpus dei mattoni scolpiti ostiensi I" (BullCom 76 (1956-1958), 183-204) and "Piccolo corpus dei mattoni scolpiti ostiensi II" (BullCom 78 (1961-1962), 112-115). Fundamental is Gerhard Zimmer, "Römische Berufsdarstellungen", Berlin 1982. For the sarcophagi we have Rita Amedick, Die Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben: Vita privata, Berlin 1991. More recently Janet DeLaine published "Street Plaques (and Other Signs) at Ostia" (in Visual Histories: Essays in Honour of R.R.R. Smith, Turnhout 2018, 331-343), and, with Yoshiki Hori, "Embellishing the Streets of Ostia" (in Designating Place. Archaeological Perspectives on Built Environments in Ostia and Pompeii, Leiden 2020, 65-81). Specialized studies were written by Eve D'Ambra, "A myth for a smith. A Meleager sarcophagus from a tomb in Ostia" (AJA 92 (1988), 85-99) and "The Midwife and the 'Doctor's wife'. Status and Patronage among the Freedwomen of Imperial Ostia" (AAPhA 1989, 16ff.), by Pablo Ozcáriz Gil, "Identification of two places for distribution of wine and oil in reliefs from the Isola Sacra" (Historia Antigua 21 (2008), 235-254), and by Franca Taglietti, "Un nuovo rilievo fittile con scena di mestiere dalla Necropoli dell'Isola Sacra" (MEFRA 130,2 (2018), 395-398). Mention should also be made of Natalie Kampen, Image and Status. Roman Working Women in Ostia, Berlin 1981.