Two stone cippi gave the modern name to one street in Ostia, the road leading from the Laurentine Gate to the intersection of Via dei Molini and the Decumanus: Semita dei Cippi. In Latin a semita is a a narrow way, a path. These low cippi are found to the north-east of the House of the Gorgons (I,XIII,6), on the east side of the road. They are probably older than the Hadrianic period. The southern one is badly damaged, but seems to record the same as the northern one (h. 0.58; w. 0.48; d. 0.14), which is a few metres away and has the inscription:

The inscription has been interpreted, with some hesitation, as HAEC SEMITA HOR(reorum) P(---) R(---) I(---) or PRI(---) EST, "This is the path of the warehouse". HORREA is certainly a sensible explanation for HOR. There are no parallels for P R I. The letters are far apart and can therefore not be the beginning of one word (the proposed PRI(---)). They must be an abbreviation of three words. We could think of P(rincipium) R(egionis) I or P(rimae) R(egionis) I(nitium), "Beginning of region I". An inscription from the third century AD informs us that Decimus Flavius Florus Veranus was sodalis corporis V regionum (or regionis) coloniae Ostiensis, a member of the guild of the five Ostian regions (or of the fifth Ostian region). The solution P(opuli) R(omani) I(ussu) or P(opuli) R(omani) I(uris) has also been suggested: "By order / legally of the Roman people". In that case it is not immediately clear what the involvement of the people of the city of Rome could have been, especially in the southern part of Ostia, far from the commercial district along the Tiber.

Was "Path of the Warehouse" the ancient name of the street that has been called Semita dei Cippi? The reference to a specific warehouses causes some surprise in a city full of horrea. The name must then refer to one or more warehouses of special significance. The building to the east of the cippi, partially excavated only, has been called Horrea, but only because of the cippi, not because of the architecture. The primary candidate are then the very large Great Horrea (II,IX,7), dating back to the period of Claudius. That building is however situated to the east of the northern extension of the road, on the other side of the Decumanus, today called Via dei Molini.

An alternative explanation has been developed on a separate page. The cippi flank a passage to a courtyard with a curved wall. Unfortunately the building has not been excavated completely yet. It might have been a little amphitheatre, where criminals were executed. Through this passage their bodies would be dragged to the necropolis beyond the Laurentine Gate. We know that the local administration of Ostia did not have the authority to condemn people to death. For that, it had to turn to Rome, and thus the presence of the Roman people would be explained. HOR could stand for horrida or horribilis: "Path of Horror".

Exedra I,XII,3 blocked the north end of the Semita dei Cippi from the middle of the fourth century onwards. In front of the House of the Jealous One (V,V,1) is a well made of rubble masonry and large fragments of amphorae. It may have been built in the later fifth century. The road was from now on obviously no longer used for the transport of goods.