Post 4 June 9

Post 4,

Today we went to Ostia, which is near the main port for Rome during ancient times. We took the long distance train to the cities ruins. And most of us had to stand the entire time going there. It was not too bad, just made your feet more sore than usual. It took about 45 minuets to get there.

Here is view of Ostia from lookout.

Once we finally got there, we had  run down of what the city was like in ancient times from Professor Aaron's point of view. He said that it was a busy bustling city and that many ships would come in and out every day and then would come in to Ostia down the Tiber river a bit and the cargo would get organized and put into storage until it was purchased or reshipped to Rome. One thing Aaron mentioned was that this cities ruins are very well preserved due to the fact hat people have not inhabited the area for over 500 years due to nature side effects, like insects and the weather caused people to not come back. I would not either if the area turned into that.

Her is part of what is left of the apartments and the living quarters of the people here in Ostia. 

First we went to the living parts of the city, where we saw a lot of apartment buildings that were intact, kinda at least. But Aaron showed us a map or a floor plan of what the apartments really looked like. And I have to say that they were big for what I estimated would be in ancient times. He said that they would be around 1000 square feet or more, which in my mind is a lot of room. Then we did some more exploring more around the living parts of the city. One fact I found interesting is that they had a huge area and living space for a fire department or where Roman soldiers would be on the look out for anything like that and other trouble in the area. I think that this is a smart move the ancient Romans did, having people always be on guard for fires and other things that potentially could happen. Its crazy, to me at least that they had a fire department way back int he ancient times, like we do today. I wonder, since Rome had so many fires, if Rome ever had a fire department like Ostia did? If they did, there would not be probably as many fires in Rome's history.

Here is the area where the solders had their headquarters.

Then we moved on and found some ancient bathrooms, which seemed very interesting to me that they had those and that they were intact for us to see them.

From there we moved on to the theater that they had there, it was supposed to host 3000 people back in ancient times. Today, it looks like it could still host that amount, then again it has been restored many times over the past few years. But it amazes me that it is still around today and could be used if it was needed to. When we were there, one of my classmates, Steve, tried speaking from the stage and me and a few people were up at the top and could hear him really well, surprisingly.

Left side of the amphitheater.

Right side of the amphitheater

After seeing that, we saw a temple and another court yard where the merchants were back in the glory days of the city. It was cool that there were mosaics that had the shops or the items they sold right in front of the stands. Then we also got to see a what was known as a grain storage site. It was in a temple like building frame, but it was used to hold grain for people to buy and to be shipped to Rome.  If I could compare this to something that is in our todays society, it would be a modern agriculture elevator. They take grain in, store it and give it out to people when they want to buy it or when another company wants some. Just like back in the ancient Roman times. Over the years we see many civilizations do this type of thing, having a surplus of food. But at this site, this was huge and about the sze of a modern elevator in the United States, as I stated earlier. I grew up in a background of agriculture; when I see something that is relatable to Ag I take an interest in it, very much so.To me, that was one of the coolest things about the trip today.

Here is the grain storage site, or the ancient elevator

Then we went to a museum to look at some statues that were found during the excavation of the site, and many of those statures were very unique in there own way, then we saw the Forum that was there and that was interesting too see, then we saw some more bathhouses, other than the first that we saw around the apartment there.

The bath houses.

After that whole day trip, we did listen to Lisa on her lectures about religion in the Roman culture relating it to medieval history. I learned a lot about some things that certain religions had that I never knew. Like, the term agnostic, I remember reading it, kinda, in the Dan Brown book series; thats it though and I did not know the definition of it.

Here is the Forum here.