The population of Ostia would have been unusually diverse in terms of ethnicity, language spoken, and geographic origin, due to the many people associated with long-distance maritime trade who passed through the town. Sailors and merchants from all over the Mediterranean would have ended up living and working in the city. There also would have existed a large force of seasonal workers who flocked to the city during the busy summer sailing season and then dispersed to other jobs the rest of the year.
The majority of the inhabitants of Ostia were probably employed in various industries related to shipping and transportation. They were dockwork-ers, sailors, warehouse laborers, shipbuilders, and merchants. In ancient Rome, people who shared the same profession tended to group together in organizations called collegia, which were somewhat similar to the guilds found in later times. With so many people concentrated in a few professions, the collegia of Ostia were particularly prominent in the social, economic, and political life of the city.
These associations also acted as political lobby groups that petitioned the government for laws favorable fo their interests. In connection with this process, collegia often erected monuments to state officials in order to curry favor with them. For example, the collegia of mensores frumentarii, or "grain measurers," based at Portus put up a statue to one of the officials in charge of overseeing the grain supply upon which they praised him for having "such fairness of judgement that all who approached him with disputes found in him a father rather than a judge" (CIL 6.1759).
The collegia showed a remarkable degree of specialization of jobs. For instance, there were three main types of rowboats used in the harbor and river, and the operators of each of these had their own collegia. Even within these categories, there was further specialization based upon the jobs for which the different boats were used. LenuncuU seem to have been larger craft with multiple oarsmen, and there were a number of separate collegia of lenuncularii, or operators of this type of boat. The lenuncularii tabularii auxiliari met arriving ships and escorted them to their berths, the lenuncularii pleromarii auxiliari transferred cargo from ship to shore, and the lenucularii traiectus Luculli were ferrymen.
Some collegia dealt with the construction and maintenance of ships, among them the fabri navales (the shipbuilders), the stuppatores (the caulkers), and the restiones (the ropemakers). Others worked in and around the docks and warehouses, such as the mensores frumentarii (the grain measurers), the saccarii (porters of grain sacks), the custodiarii (warehouse guards), the gendi (stevedores), the phalangarii (porters of clay amphorae), the saburrarii (porters of sand used for ballast in ships), and the urinatores (divers who recovered goods that fell into the water). These are only a sample of the more than 50 attested collegia at Ostia, which, in addition to
Figure 13.7 Piazza of the Corporations mosaic in front of the office for stuppatores (ship caulkers) at Ostia.
The many associated with transportation and maritime professions, also included standard urban trades such as fullers, bakers, carpenters, and general construction workers. The associative phenomenon extended to groups of youths in the city who had their own guilds and even to the public slaves of Ostia, who were allowed to form an organization. Women, however, were excluded from membership in the collegia, although some enterprising women clearly owned property and even businesses, such as two women who are listed among the owners of a shop that manufactured lead pipes.
Some inscriptions record the entire membership of a collegia in a certain year. From these lists it is possible to tell that freeborn citizens and former slaves, or freedmen, mingled together as members. Many of the club officials were former slaves, and thus the collegia offered a form of social respectability and upward mobility. Some of the largest surviving membership rolls belonged to the guild of general construction workers, who numbered 350 in. ad 198, and the shipbuilders of Portus, who boasted 353 members in the early third century ad. There are a few instances of individuals who belonged to more than one collegia, but this seems to have been unusual. Collegia were not only professional associations but also served as social dubs. The members often constructed guild headquarters where they could gather to socialize, and they also frequently incorporated a temple or shrine, so these associations played a central part in religious life as well. These centers of worship were dedicated to a very wide range of gods, including many Eastern ones, and illustrate the cosmopolitan nature of Ostia's populace and its links to the broader world. At least 15 of these headquarters/temples have been identified with some degree of certainty. They range in size from the most humble ones to large complexes with over a dozen rooms and elaborate facilities.
SEA TRAVEL
Since Ostia functioned as the maritime gateway to the rest of the world for Rome, it is perhaps appropriate to consider some of the characteristics of sea travel in the Roman Mediterranean,
Roman merchant ships were fairly small on the whole, although the craft that operated as part of the food-supply system for the city were probably among the largest. The average size of these freighters is difficult to guess, but a reasonable estimate might be around 250 tons. Roman merchant ships were typically of a broad-beamed design, with a single mast and large, square sails. Ancient sources refer to some grain freighters, particularly those of the Egyptian fleet, as being very large. The river craft that brought goods from Ostia and Portus would have been much smaller, perhaps about 70 tons.
The lack of any method of weather prediction rendered sea travel very hazardous. Most ships accordingly clung to the coast both so that they could quickly seek shelter and because there were no reliable means of navigating across the open sea. The tendency of ships to stay close to shore made them vulnerable to a different menace—pirates.
Just as bandits owned the countryside, for most of Roman history, pirates ruled the seas. The shore-hugging nature of ancient sailing made it easy for greedy or desperate men to watch for such ships and, when they were sighted, to dash out to sea and seize them. They often killed the crew
Figure 13,8 Roman merchant ship of typical design. Hundreds of such ships carrying goods would have plied the waters of the Mediterranean.
Or sold them into slavery and stole the goods to be sold later. If the pirates captured a wealthy or important person, they would hold him or her for ransom. In some coastal areas of the Mediterranean, piracy was a way of life. The most infamous area was along the coast of Asia Minor in a region called Cilicia. Piracy was most rampant in periods when central authority was weakest. The Late Republic was one of the worst times; pirate gangs attained the power and size of small kingdoms.
No one was safe from them, as is illustrated by the fact that when Julius Caesar was young, he was captured by pirates who held him for ransom. However, he was insulted that his captors only asked for 20 talents of ransom when Caesar thought that he was worth at least 50. He told his captors that as a result of this offence, he would have them all crucified. As soon as his ransom was paid and he was released, he gathered together some ships and soldiers, tracked down the pirates, and—true to his word—had them all crucified. Eventually piracy became so severe that the Romans had to act. In 67 bc, a special law called the Lex Gabinia was passed, giving the general Pompey an extraordinary command. He was awarded absolute power over the entire Mediterranean Sea as well as along the coasts to a distance of 50 miles inland. He was given 20 legions and 270 ships, and he was ordered to soh'e the pirate problem. He divided the sea into 13 regions and set up blockades so that no one could pass from one region to another. He then began at one end of the Mediterranean and swept across it, capturing and destroying all the pirates' strongholds on the coasts while driving the fleets ahead of him. In only three months, Pompey succeeded in purging the Mediterranean of piracy. Piracy naturally came back, but after the establishment of Roman naval bases, it was never as much of a threat as it had been during the Late Republic.
Because it was much faster to go by sea than by land, most people traveling long distances went by ship. There were no passenger vessels, so if one wished to travel, one had to arrange passage on a merchant ship. Since most long-distance travel was concerned with the food supply of Rome, these large freighters were the ships that passengers would travel on. Because of the harshness and unpredictability of winter storms at sea, ships mainly sailed in the summer. A few traveled in the spring and fall, but very few would risk sailing in the winter, when storms were most frequent.
The motivation for such travelers was varied. People often undertook trips to famous temples in attempts to cure an illness. Large, international contests such as the Olympics attracted travelers. Finally, many people simply went on holidays. Rich Romans liked to spend the summer on the coast, and the Bay of Naples in particular was a kind of resort area for the rich. If you were a passenger on a merchant ship, you had to bring all your own equipment, including your bed, the food you would eat, the pots and pans to cook it in, and the servants to do the work. Travelers were advised to conceal their valuables in a pouch under their shirt, and women were told not to wear any jewelry that might attract robbers. Once they had disembarked, travelers staying in foreign places would lodge at inns. Documents called itineraria were available, which listed the locations and characteristics of different lodgings.
There were a fair number of people whom today we would call tourists. These tourists were mostly interested in the past and in seeing famous sights or monuments. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were tourist destinations, as were sights associated with mythological events and stories, particularly the Trojan War. Some tourists would go to see the graves of heroes while others would visit the houses where famous men had lived, such as the house of Socrates in Athens. Like today, art attracted tourists. The ancients did not have museums, but most temples were almost like museums in that they were stuffed with sculptures, paintings, and war trophies. Certain statues became very famous, such as the cult statue of Zeus and a famous, extremely lifelike sculpture of a bronze cow by Myron in Athens.
A milestone in ancient travel occurred in the second century ad, when a Greek named Pausanias wrote the first comprehensive guidebook to a country. He penned a book describing all the famous sites and monuments of Greece. His guidebook is organized by regions and cities, and for major places like Athens, he even offers directions for different walking tours that will take one to the notable places in the city.
The permanent population of Ostia would have witnessed a constant stream of people passing through their city. Opportunities for employment as laborers during the busy shipping season probably meant that there was an annual surge of temporary workers who would swell the town's population for a few months and then dissipate. Also, as it was the main gateway between Rome and the rest of the world, many travelers, both famous and humble, would have passed through Ostia. Among these was St. Augustine, who in his Confessions describes in detail a conversation between himself and his mother that took place while they were staying at an inn at Ostia resting up before undertaking a sea voyage (Augustine, Confessions 9.10.23). Augustine even includes the pleasant detail that their room had a window overlooking an internal courtyard with a garden, but his experience as a traveler, stopping briefly in Ostia, was one that would have been shared by many.
World History
