Ostia Antica

I was immediately impressed with how well preserved Ostia Antica was. I found it really interesting that most of the important aspects of the city were nearly perfectly preserved after about 2000 years, despite threats ranging from pirate raids to soil erosion. More interestingly, though, Ostia Anitca had enormous economic implications for the city of Rome and the Roman Empire as a whole. Ostia is often called Rome’s first colony, and was conquered by the Romans around 400 BC. Ultimately, the population in Ostia grew to as much as 60,000 inhabitants. However, the most impressive aspect of Ostia was its role in the Roman supply line. In antiquity, Ostia sat at the mouth of the Tiber River (“ostium” means “mouth” in Latin), and also along the coast of the Mediterranean. While Ostia was abandoned in 9^th century AD following the collapse of the Roman Empire, the city undoubtedly had enormous economic implications for the Roman civilization prior to its collapse.

The number of inhabitants in the city of Rome at the height of the Principate was immense; about one million people lived in the city of Rome, which created economic conundrums for the rulers of the Empire. Since the city’s population was so immense, it was necessary to obtain food from areas of the Empire besides Rome and its surrounding land in order to effectively feed the city’s inhabitants. Around 123 BC, Gaius Gracchus, a Tribune of the Plebeians, proposed a number of reforms that included a system of low price fixation for grain in Rome in order to make it easier to feed the masses. This was the beginning of a vital economic system that aimed to provide adequate sustenance for the enormous population found in the city of Rome.

Gaius’s ideas of fixed grain prices were eventually expanded upon, and Rome’s first emperor Augustus transformed the grain price fixation into a system called the “frumentationes” that gave free grain to 200,000 Roman citizens who lived in Rome. Under this system, grain would be imported into the city of Rome from other more fertile areas of the Empire through a supply chain called the “annona”  and distributed for free to 200,000 recipients within the city of Rome; each recipient was given enough grain to feed two people. Grain would arrive in the city of Ostia by boat from far-off areas of the Empire and be stored in warehouses in Ostia (pictured) until it was ready to be transported to the city of Rome in large pots (pictured). While in Ostia, we were actually able to see the warehouses and pots involved in the wheat and grain transportation and storage, and also see the area where private guilds of merchants were located who likely played a part in transporting the grains.

I find this grain distribution system intriguing for a number of reasons. First of all, it appears to me that the grain distribution system amounts to a system of political control for the Roman ruling class of senators; the system is part of the reason behind the phrase “bread and circuses.” By appeasing the lower classes in Rome with free wheat (and competitive games), the Roman ruling class was able to distract the lower classes from their inadequate living conditions. Furthermore, this system demonstrates a degree of economic complexity present in the ancient Roman civilization that some may not initially expect. Their complex system of feeding nearly two-fifths of a huge city population has really impressed me, and it was interesting to see concrete elements of the system in person. Overall, after seeing Ostia and the grain distribution system in person I’m inclined to believe that the ancient Roman system was much more economically advanced than I initially thought.

~Kyle Woolwich