In Ostia you have to see the ruins of this city and also the Seaport of Claudius and the Castle of Julius II.
If you like to arrive in Ancient Ostia from Rome, take the metro “B” line from Termini Station until the metro stop of Magliana. Then from here take the train for Ostia Antica.
The remains of Ancient Ostia stand on a territorial and geographical context that is very different from the ancient one: in fact, in the Roman age, the Tiber skirted the northern side of the inhabited area, while nowadays it scarcely touches a portion of the western sector, having had its bed dragged downstream by a famous and disastrous flood in 1557.Moreover, the shoreline as well, originally close to the town, is now 4 km away from it, because of the advance of the mainland due to the debris left by the river over the last 2000 years. Ostia, therefore, was a town built on both the sea and the river and such a special position determined its relevance over the centuries from a strategic-military and an economic viewpoint.According to an ancient tradition, it was founded as a colony by the fourth king of Rome, Ancus Marcius, about the year 620 BCE, in order to exploit the salt-mines at the mouth of the Tiber (hence the name Ostia, which derives from ostium = embouchure). Nevertheless, the most ancient remain is a fortalice (Castrum), made of tufa blocks, dating only to the second half of the 4th c. BCE, built by the Roman settlers with the solely military aim of controlling the mouth of the Tiber and the Latian coast.
Later, especially after the 2nd century BCE, when Rome gained supremacy over the whole Mediterranean sea, the military function of the town started to decrease, as it quickly became the main emporium of Rome. For this reason, particularly between the 1st and the 2nd century CE, Ostia greatly expanded by equipping itself with prominent public and private buildings.
In the following centuries, given the general decline of the Roman Empire, the town fell into a slow decay which led to the abandonment of the site after the mid-5th century CE.
In 42 CE the Emperor Claudius began the construction of a large seaport (Port of Claudius), located 3 km north of the mouth of the Tiber, and completed in 64 CE, under Nero’s principate.
The massive infrastructure ensured a quiet basin in which could be safely carried out the discharge of goods from the large trade vessels arriving from across the Mediterranean as well as their transhipment onto river boats (naves caudicariae) suitable for sailing up the Tiber as far as Rome.
The port basin, spanning more than 200 hectares, was excavated in the dryland partially enclosed on the seaward side by two curved piers converging towards the entrance. There, on an artificial island, stood a gigantic lighthouse, similar to the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria of Egypt, which indicated to seafarers the entrance of the basin. Also, at least two artificial canals ensured the connection between the sea, the Port of Claudius and the Tiber.
The foundations of the right-hand side (or northern) pier are still visible behind the Museum of Ships for an extent of about one kilometre.On the quay that bordered the dock on the landward side are still preserved some of the functional structures relevant to the port: the so-called Captaincy, a cistern and some thermal buildings constructed, though, in a later period (2nd c. CE) than Claudius’s structure.
The scant security and the progressive silting to which the port was prone, drove the emperor Trajan to build, just 40 years later (between 100 and 112 CE), a new more inward basin, the Port of Trajan. The Port of Claudius, continued, however, to be used as a roadstead
In 1483, under the pontificate of Pope Sixtus IV, the Bishop of Ostia Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (the future Pope Julius II) began the construction of the Castle of Ostia, which was completed in 1486 under Pope Innocent VIII . The fortalice incorporated the pre-existing round tower, built in 1423-24 under Pope Martin V Colonna, which became the keep of the new building. The fortress served as the seat of the Papal Custom Houses, which regulated the payment of excise on goods arriving in Rome by sea.
Once ascended to the papal throne, Julius II (1503-1513) had important transformations made: a true papal apartment was built on the western side of the courtyard, by means of refurbishing some of the environments of the era of the Borgias. The three floors of the building were connected by a monumental staircase, frescoed, according to recent studies, by Baldassare Peruzzi with some collaborators, among them being the Lombard Cesare da Sesto.
At the end of the conflict between France and Spain, in 1556, the fortress of Ostia underwent a famous siege by the Spaniards, which resulted in no few damages to the structure. One year later, in 1557, after a sensational flood, the Tiber shifted its course to the present one. This caused the transfer of the Papal Custom Houses first to Tor Boacciana and then to Tor S. Michele.
In the 18th century the castle was used as a barn and then, in the following century, it became a prison for the convicts used as forced labour in the excavations at Ancient Ostia.
After several restorations made over the course of the 20th century, in 2003 an exhibition space was arranged in some of the rooms of the papal apartments and of the keep, in order to display the most significant part of the collection of late medieval and Renaissance ceramics, issuing from excavations carried out in the last century within the castle and the village.