The Roman Mysteries - Ostia Antica audio guide

NB: The Audio Guide has temporarily been discontinued...
...but you can read my printable guide HERE
(3-D computer generated illustrations by Marzia Vinci)

I meet Janussia at the bakery, another place I haven't been to during any of my three former visits to Ostia.
right: going past a granary towards the river

Nervia Primigenia, (who runs a wholesale business specialising in the importation of wine and oil), shows me where to see Roman numerals scratched on the huge storage jars (dollia) buried in the ground. The numbers indicate how many amphoras the jar could hold. On one big jar I see the number XXXXVIII - 48. It occurs to me that these jars are big enough to provide a hiding place for a person. Or a body! I pause the commentary and rapidly scribble notes.

Titus Silius Priscus, a freedman, tells me about his job in the fullonica, treading cloth in vats full of urine (Ewww!) I knew this, of course, but it reminds me that slaves would have collected this same liquid daily from the convenient jars (nicknamed Vespasianii) situated around town. I make a note on my pad to have Lupus almost knock down a slave with a jar of urine rather than wine.
left: bird's eye view of Ostia and the river mouth

There's even Marcus Lollianus Callinicus - a 4th century priest of Mithras - to tell me about the Mithraea of Ostia Antica. By the late 2nd century there were dozens! There's even an amusing joke about the followers of Cybele. *ahem!*

My favourite character on the audiotape is Ummidia Quadratilla.
right: bird's eye view of the theatre and Forum of Corporations

I already know her from the letters of Pliny the Younger, and I've been intending to introduce her to Flavia et al. So it's like meeting an old friend. Ummidia has a cheerful, upper-class voice. She shows me round Ostia's piece de resistance, the theatre:

'Welcome to our Ostian theatre. My name is Ummidia Quadratilla and I was quite a patroness of the theatrical arts. It's in quite a state of disrepair now - alas! - but in it's heyday it was about twice the height of the largely restored structure you see here... We had music, dances, mimes, songs... Oh! how we loved to laugh! We didn't go in for those tragic tales so dear to the Greeks...'

She ends her delightful commentary with a fruity laugh: 'Now I'd like you to meet my friend Tiberius Claudius Severus, a high-ranking and handsome naval officer...'

If you find yourself in Ostia Antica this summer, with a group or on your own, make sure you get the audio guide! It's a real treat.

with thanks toMarzia Vinci

Ostia Antica