Apartments and shops

The vast majority of the people in Ostia lived in upper floor apartments, but of these floors hardly anything has been preserved. Therefore, and because a large part of the city has not been excavated, it is difficult to estimate the size of the population (twenty-five thousand?). On the ground floor distinctive middle class apartments have been identified, most of which were built during the reign of Hadrian. These apartments received light from a long row of windows in one of the long outer walls. The lay-out of the interior is asymmetrical and characterized by rooms arranged around three sides of a central hall, the medianum.

1. Vestibule 2. Staircase with latrine below 3. Secondary main room (exedra) 4. Central hall (medianum) 5. Bedroom (cubiculum) 6. Bedroom (cubiculum) 7. Primary main room (exedra)

Plan of a medianum-apartment. From Hermansen 1982, fig. 8.

Many of the apartments form part of two clusters that bring to mind the Hilarian-Iunian complex of gardens, buildings and shops, the usufruct of which was bequeathed by Iunia Libertas. The first cluster has been called Insula of the Paintings (I,IV). It consists of a rich domus, the House of Giove and Ganymede, and two medianum-apartments, the House of the Infant Bacchus and the House of the Paintings. These three buildings are laid out in an L-shape around a garden. Along the other long side of the garden is a row of shops. The north end of the garden was taken up by the Caseggiato dei Doli decades later, in the Severan period. In the garden five flower pots with a hole in the bottom were found, and a few light walls that may have formed a pavilion. The garden was divided in two halves by a secondary, brick wall, dated to the years 150-180 AD. Against it a pseudo-aedicula was set in which a statue of Jupiter was found, with paintings of eagles on the back. This private shrine has been assigned to the Severan period.

The Insula of the Paintings: a garden surrounded by shops, a domus and apartments.
Seen from the north-west. Photo: Bing maps.

The little shrine with the statue of Jupiter in the garden.
Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.

The other estate has been called Garden Houses (III,IX). The lay-out is unique. A ring of shops shields the apartments from the busy streets. Behind the shops is a second ring, this time of apartments with a few shops. The second ring encloses a garden in which four pairs of apartments were built. In the garden were basins and a fountain decorated with a mosaic of a Nilotic scene and a sculptural group of a fisherman and fishes in the sea. As in the Insula of the Paintings there is one rich domus, the House of the Muses. In these apartments no clues have been found that reveal the identity of the inhabitants. Good candidates are the decuriones, the one hundred members of the city council, and their children.

The Garden Houses and, at the bottom, a long row of shops. Seen from the north. Photo: Bing Maps.

The sculptural group of a fisherman and the sea.
Photo: Wikimedia, Lalupa.

Opposite the House of the Muses is an expensive hotel, the House of the Painted Vaults. Next to the hotel was a large stable. Pliny the Younger travelled to his villa on horseback, but if he would have decided to go to Ostia first, he would have had to dismount. Hadrian forbade riding on horseback in cities, repeating a law of Claudius, to be repeated again by Marcus Aurelius. Obviously violations were frequent.

Viatores ne per Italiae oppida nisi aut pedibus aut sella aut lectica transirent, monuit edicto.	Claudius provided by an edict that travellers should not pass through the towns of Italy except on foot, or in a chair or litter.
Sederi equos in civitatibus non sivit.	Hadrian did not permit riding on horseback in cities.
Idem Marcus sederi in civitatibus vetuit in equis sive vehiculis.	Marcus Aurelius forbade riding and driving within the limits of any city.
Suetonius, Claudius 25,2. Translation J.C. Rolfe. Historia Augusta, Hadrianus 22,7 and Marcus Aurelius 23,8. Translation David Magie.

The streets of Ostia were lined by hundreds of shops, simple rectangular rooms, often with sidewalks in front, sometimes behind porticos. They have characteristic thresholds, with long grooves in which shutters could be slid. Of course it is not very difficult to imagine what was sold there, but only rarely can we assign a specific commodity to a shop. At an intersection to the west of the forum were the meat market and fish shops. To get some idea of what the streets must have looked like we can turn to the souks of cities like Marrakech and Fez. A building that has often been compared to a bazaar is the House of the Lararium. Here an outer ring of shops faces streets, while more shops surround a small courtyard. What we don't know is whether Ostia, like the souks, was divided into retail areas for particular goods such as clothes, crockery, oil lamps and so on. Fortunately some reliefs have been found with people in shops.

Relief of a woman selling vegetables: beans, spring onions, asparagus and zucchini?
Photo: Karavieri 2020, cat. nr. 117.

Relief of a woman selling chicken or geese, hanging on the left side. In front of the woman are plates with eggs or fruit.
On the right part of the counter is a basket, with to the left a large snail (suggesting what was inside), and to the right two monkeys.
The counter itself seems to be a cage that contains live chicken and two hares. Photo: Karavieri 2020, cat. nr. 118.