Excavated: 1881 (NSc 1881, 117; Lanciani). Seen by Lanciani for the first time on April 25th 1881.
Mosaic: SO IV, 67 nr. 86, tav. 175 (top).
Inscription: CIL XIV, 279; CIL XIV S, 4549, 4.
Date: 190-200 AD (SO IV).
Meas. of tesserae: 0.015-0.02 (SO IV).
Mosaic
General descriptionThe floor of the back room has not been preserved. Most of the mosaic in the front room is lost, only the east part has been preserved. Parts of a black band, perhaps running around the entire room, have been preserved at the eastern and south-eastern edge (four tesserae wide). Part of a tabula ansata with a white background has been preserved with missing parts filled in with modern cement and tesserae. The size of the ansae indicates that there was only one line of text. This is confirmed by the photo published in Scavi di Ostia IV, on which the western border of the tabula can still be seen, now lost. The border is two tesserae wide.
TextIn the tabula the remains of one line of text can today be seen:
[5]V[1]ARRIC
According to old drawings there was a dot in front of the single missing letter.
Measurements of tabula and text: w. 1.73, h. 0.37; h. of letters 0.22.
Here is what has been reported about the text (see also this drawing; top: Lanciani 1881; centre: Dessau 1887; bottom: Wickert 1930).
- In 1881 Lanciani gives us NAV[IC]VL IARRIC, with the lower part of the first V and the upper part of the first preserved I lost.
- In 1887 Dessau gives us NAV[ICV]L IARRIC, with ICV, the left part of the L, and the upper part of the I lost.
Both have seven letters for the first word, but today the space allows only six. An extra letter may have been squeezed in however. Neither Lanciani nor Dessau offers an explanation for the second word.
- A bit later Tarracina is mentioned in a German description of Ostia by Fisch (1898, 30) and Terracine in the French Baedeker guide of central italy (1900, 406). I have not been able to determine who was the first to have proposed (apparently) Tarricinenses.
- In 1910 Vaglieri suggests NAV[ICV]L(ARIORVM) [T]ARRIC(INENSIVM) (Vaglieri 1910, Miscellanea Hortis, 540).
- In 1912 Vaglieri rejects Tarricinenses ("as has been read by some") and states that the first letter of the second word can absolutely not be a T, it is a P or an F (NSc 1912, 211 note 1).
- In 1913 Michon follows Vaglieri and suggests farrici, derived from far, "spelt" (Michon 1913, 240 note 2).
- In 1930 Wickert gives us N[4]V (dot) I[1]ARR[1]C.
The V (= U) that we see today must be a faulty modern restoration, also because an abbreviation of navicularii would not end with a vowel. Vaglieri's P or F is not supported by the drawings published by Lanciani and Dessau. Michon's interpretation is unlikely, as stated already by Wickert. Far ("spelt") is a class of wheat, but during the Roman Empire we consistently hear about frumentum. Other letters do not lead to a solution that fits the square, with the exception of T. The reference is to Tarracina, modern Terracina in Italy (not Tarraco, modern Tarragona in Spain).
Suggested reading:
NAV[IC]VL(arii) TARRIC(inenses) or NAV[IC]VL(ariorum) TARRIC(inensium)
Depictions
No depictions have been preserved.
Masonry
The back room has a rear wall of opus latericium, and side walls of opus vittatum simplex (two and three layers preserved). On Vaglieri's plan and on Gismondi's plan the north (left) wall is in the east half of the back room only, and in the middle of the back room connected with the south wall by a line (Vaglieri) and a transverse wall (Gismondi). Today the north wall reaches the brick column in the centre of the room. while there is no trace of the transverse wall. NADIS inv. nr. 642 shows also a U-shape in the back part of the back room. The model has a threshold or low wall halfway the back room, and a U-shaped bench set against the walls of the rear part of the back room.
Interpretation
Terracina is found in relation to Ostia-Portus in a late antique, legal text, Codex Theodosianus XIV.6.3 from 365 AD. The context is the burning and transport on wagons of building material (calx, "lime"):
Hoc autem excepto a Tarracinensis praestationis canone suggera, quae vetusto praeberi fari ac Portus usibus more consuevit.
Pharr translates:
"Moreover, this exception shall be made from the regular tax of the payment of Terracina which is customarily assigned, according to ancient usage, to the requirements of the lighthouse and the Port".[1]
Rougé translates:
"Nous en exceptons cependant la prestation régulière supportée par les habitants de Terracine et destinée, suivant un antique usage, aux besoins du Phare et du Portus".[2]
Wood and lime for Rome were also supplied by Terracina, as recounted by Symmachus (Relatio 40,3; 384 AD):
Sed divo Iuliano moderante rem publicam cum Lupus consulari iure Campaniae praesidens Tarracinensium contemplaretur angustias, quod nihil subsidii decreta dudum oppida conferebant, ne commoda populo Romano civitas, quae lavacris publicis ligna et calcem reparandis moenibus subministrat, defectu subito ex hausta succumberet, quinque milia et septingentos modios Puteolanis municipibus derogatos Tarracinensium usui deputavit et amplissimae praetorianae sedi statuta et definita suggessit.
Barrow translates:
"But, while the late Emperor Julian ruled the state, Lupus, with consular power, was in charge of Campania, and he watched the plight the people of Tarracina were in, because the designated towns for a long time had contributed nothing by way of subvention. He was afraid that a city of such service to the Roman people - it provided wood for (the furnaces of) the wash-places and lime for repairing the city walls - would be exhausted by any sudded scarcity and would collapse. And so he assigned for the use of the people of Tarracina 5,700 modii which had been earmarked for the townsmen of Puteoli, and he proposed to the most noble praetorian department regulations and specifications".[3]
Tarracina could be expected to supply wood and lime for Rome: firewood for the baths, and lime for the maintenance of walls (mixed with the pozzolana from Puteoli it produced mortar). This leaves little doubt that what they supplied for Portus and the Claudian lighthouse was the same: lime and perhaps pozzolana for the construction and maintenance of harbour structures, and firewood for the lighthouse. It was supplied "according to an old custom", which takes us back to at least the third century. The statio thus becomes yet another example of local activity, together with stationes 1-3.
(1) Cf. Keay et al. 2005, 323.
(2) Rougé 1961, 72.
(3) Barrow 1973, 207. Virius (?) Lupus was consular governor of Campania in 361-363 AD. See also Rougé 1961, 74.