Daily life in the harbours

Commercial harbours usually do not have a good reputation. Juvenalis does not form an exception when he writes about Lateranus, an Imperial legate who was reluctant to defend the limes:

Send to Ostia, Caesar, send, but look for the legatus in the big pub, and you will find him lying with some hit man, in company with sailors, thieves, and runaway slaves, among hangmen, coffin-makers and the idle tambourines of a priest of Cybele, prostrate from drunkenness. Here is Liberty Hall! One cup serves for everybody; no one has a bed to himself, nor a table apart from the rest.

Apparently this Lateranus was slow to make preparations for the voyage and missed opportunity after opportunity to board a ship.

"In einem Wirtshause im alten Rom", by Hermann Vogel (1854-1921).

Apuleius, in his novel Metamorphoses, merely mentions Portus as a place of transit, surprisingly in the middle of the mare clausum, on December 12:

Safely driven by favouring winds, I arrived very quickly at the Port of Augustus, and hurried on from there by carriage. On the eve of the Ides of December, I reached the holy, inviolate city.

We get a taste of the hectic activity in the harbours by a few papyri found in Egypt. Apollinarius, recruit of the Misenum fleet, wrote a letter to his mother, and says that he has safely reached Portus.

Apollinarius to Thaesion, his mother, many greetings. Before all else I wish you good health and make obeisance on your behalf to all the gods. From Cyrene, where I found a man who was journeying to you, I deemed it necessary to write to you about my welfare. And do you inform me at once about your safety and that of my brothers. And now I am writing you from Portus, for I have not yet gone up to Rome and been assigned. When I have been assigned and know where I am going, I will let you know at once; and for your part, do not delay to write about your health and that of my brothers. If you do not find anybody coming to me, write to Sokrates and he forwards it to me. I salute often my brothers, and Apollinarius and his children, and Kalalas and his children, and all your friends. Asklepiades salutes you. Farewell and good health. I arrived in Portus on Pachon 25 [May 20th]. (2nd hand) Know that I have been assigned to Misenum, for I learned it later. (Verso) Deliver to Karanis, to Taesion, from Apollinarius, her son.

Papyrus PMich 4527, a letter from Apollinarius to his mother. "Portus" and "Rome" can be read at the start and end of line 10.

Another papyrus registers the arrival in Alexandria of a ship coming from Ostia that could carry about 585 thousand kilograms of grain. It must have formed part of the Alexandrian grain fleet. It may well have been 15 meters wide and 50 meters long.

From Ostia. [The ship] of Lucius Pompeius Metrodoros, [name of the ship]. 22.500 artabae. To sail in.

The work in the port was physically demanding and it comes as no surpise that the physician Galenus, court physician of Marcus Aurelius, mentions Ostia and Portus when he discusses an abnormal form of dislocated shoulders.

It is not reported in the harbour and in the nearby city which they call Ostia; all the doctors in those places are my friends, and both are populous centres.

Galenus may also have been one of the physicians who, during a plague in 189 AD, advised Commodus to retreat to an Imperial villa in the Laurentine territory to the south of Ostia. Herodianus says:

About this time, plague struck all Italy. The suffering was especially severe in Rome, since the city, which received people from all over the world, was overcrowded. The city suffered great loss of both men and animals. Then, on the advice of his physicians, Commodus left Rome for Laurentum. This region enjoyed the shade from extensive laurel groves (whence the area derives its name); it was cooler there and seemed to be a safe haven. The emperor is said to have counteracted the pollution in the air by the fragrant scent of the laurels and the refreshing shade of the trees.

"Peste à Rome", by Jules Elie Delaunay, 1869. Photo: Wikimedia, Madame Tatillonne.

Commodus was mentioned by Septimius Severus in an oration held in the Senate in Rome, in 197 AD, probably referring to an event in the Ostian theatre during its inauguration the year before. He is quoted by Cassius Dio:

"For if it was disgraceful," he said, "for him [Commodus] with his own hands to slay wild beasts, yet at Ostia only the other day one of your number, an old man who had been consul, was publicly sporting with a prostitute who imitated a leopard."

Finally there is a reference to Commodus, with various earlier Emperors, in the Liber Coloniarum. This book was written in the fourth century AD, and discusses the division of the land, borders and so on in Italy.

The Ostian territory was assigned by the Emperors Vespasian, Trajan, and Hadrian to their colonists, in parcels, in small pieces, and through furrows, but later the Emperors Verus Antoninus and Commodus donated some parts to private citizens.

Five portraits of Commodus have been identified in Ostia. The one depicted here was found in 1797 near Tor Boacciana, near the ancient Tiber mouth, together with other Imperial portraits. Probably the palatium of the Emperors was located here.

A portrait of Commodus in the Museo Chiaramonti (Vatican). Photo: Wikimedia, Sailko.

The book also provides some information about Portus, but without a date.

Part of the land around Portus on the river Tiber was allocated in iugera [units of about 70 x 35 meters] and granted to townspeople, and they received a declaration according to the evaluation of its fertility.

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