Panel 5.14 – Trade and Commerce in the Harbour Town of Ostia


Organiser/Chair:

  • Alice Landskron (University of Graz)

External Discussant:

  • Claudia Tempesta

Panel abstract

Manifold evidence for trade and commerce have come to light in Ostia: inscriptions, images on mosaics, reliefs etc.

Epigraphic evidence and images provide information regarding many club houses and guilds, as well as private financing of public buildings such as baths, sanctuaries, and public gathering places. The mosaics of the Piazzale delle corporazioni, the court of the guilds, which is situated in the Area sacra, provide unique and comprehensive information on the economic growth and trade in the harbor town and, further afield, in Rome. It can be identified as a unique example for the documentation and organization of commerce and trade in Ostia, highlighting its importance as a hub city. This area was intended as a place of interaction of mercantile and sacred events.

Furthermore, the large number of archaeological and artistic remains which feature different kinds of work, or spatial areas in which occupations were practiced, provide excellent information on how society in Ostia and beyond reacted to the demand for craft and trade, and how such commerce was represented both communally and individually. Researchers have recognised in this a new social class that was developed in Roman society, showing proud individuals who were well accepted as skilled craftsmen and professionals since they played an important role within society. Numerous guilds and guild houses were established in Ostia since early imperial times. Often, liberti became affiliated with guilds and collegia in order to enhance and strengthen their social prestige. There is epigraphic evidence of about 60 collegia in imperial times, most of them situated along the main streets.

The aim of the panel is to discuss what kind of trade and commerce is represented in written and visual sources, and what information these sources provide about the people who were involved in the economic processes of production and especially of distribution in Ostia.

The proposed panel deals with contributions on visualizations as well as epigraphic evidence in the context of trade and commerce in Ostia. Papers could also deal with people or individuals involved in trade and commerce, with forms of representation of merchandising, with the function of guilds, or with infrastructural facilities. Furthermore, questions regarding the value of specific kinds of trade and commerce within Ostian society could also be addressed.

"Introduction" (Fulltext)

 

Paper abstracts

1. Simone Ciambelli (Università di Bologna / Université de Poitiers)

The patronage of professional collegia and the social rise of the collegiati in Ostia (II-III centuries AD)
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the professional collegia, especially those linked with the annona, could be considered the protagonists of the «social revolution», to use Russel Meiggs’ fortunate expression, which exploded in Ostia during the II century AD. To do that I will analyse a particular aspect that comes from the abundant epigraphical sources: the patronage over the professional associations.
In the first part, I will briefly introduce to the different professional collegia attested and I will show the high heterogeneity of the social profile of the 90 patrons identified in the Ostian epigraphical material.
In the second part, I will focus my attention on the social rise of the collegiati through the title of patron. In fact, a remarkable number of patroni, about the 26%, comes from the collegial milieu and, thanks to this prestigious title, they became a part of the new Ostian élite with the co-optation inside the ordo decurionum. This aspect of the patronage is a peculiarity of Ostia, in fact in the rest of the Roman world the patronus collegiorum usually comes from a different social class than collegiati.
I will conclude that the professional collegia played an important role in the Ostian society and some locupletes members of them were even capable to replace a part of the old local nobility, distrustful to the collegial world of craftsmen and tradesmen and still tied with the traditional aristocratic ideology, based on the economy of agriculture.

"Il patronato dei collegia professionali e l’ascesa sociale dei collegiati ad Ostia (II – III secolo d. C.)" (Fulltext)

 

2. Ghislaine van der Ploeg (University of Cologne)

Trade, Identity, and Mobility: the Case of Lucius Caecilius Aemilianus
Increased mobility was one of the characteristics of the Roman Empire. Improved infrastructure, trade links, and Roman citizenship enabled people to move around the Mediterranean and settle in a new place. The harbour city of Ostia, with its vast movement of people and goods, was emblematic of this phenomenon of mobility and connectivity. People from all over the Roman Empire, including many from the Roman North African provinces, lived and worked here. Evidence for this is especially visible in the Piazzale delle Corporazioni with its many stationes relating to African cities such as Carthage. This paper will explore these connections between Africa and Ostia by studying an inscription erected by an African veteran, decurio, and duovir, Lucius Caecilius Aemilianus, who dedicated this inscription while he was living and working as a wine trader in Ostia. In this inscription, he displayed an interesting combination of both his military past and his Ostian commercial present career as he was a member of the corpus splendidissimum importatorum et negotiantium vinariorum. This paper will examine why Aemilianus chose to display this in such a way and it will show how his past military career aided his present one in Ostia. It will also explore how a newly-arrived individual had to establish their identity in Ostia via social networks and the important role the collegia played in this.

"Identity, Trade, and Mobility in Ostia Antica" (Fulltext)

 

3. Paola Baldassarri (Città Metropolitana di Roma) and Simona Faedda (UB Barcelona)

Spain-Ostia-Rome: evidences of economic and artistic relationships from the excavation of Palazzo Valentini in Rome
The archaeological excavation beneath Palazzo Valentini have brought to light a residential quarter of the Middle and Late Empire.
The two sumptuous domus had two building phases, dating to the 2nd and to the first half of the 4th century AD. In this late phase they probably became a single, large domus with annexed thermae, belonged to the highest social class, senators or high dignitaries of the imperial court.
They could have a Spanish origin or at least relationships with the Spanish provinces: traces are evident in the presence of Iberic amphorae, from Baetica, representative of a domestic life. It reflects the economic situation that links Rome with Baetica. In the opus sectile pavements it has been recognised the broccatello of Tortosa, a Spanish marble but rarely outside. One of them can be compared with two other pavements from Italica and Sevilla and with an opus sectile floor of the Domus of Amore and Psyche at Ostia.
All these clues could suggest a triangular relation between Rome, Ostia/Portus and Spain. A Spanish origin or large properties in a Spanish province could constitute the richness of the owners of the domus, based on traffics of goods, not only food staffs, but also furniture and marbles, from Spain in direction to Rome through the harbour of Portus. In reverse ideas and cartoons for the decoration of Spanish domus could have started from Rome and reached the province. A foothold domus in Ostia could have supported the control of their overseas affairs.

"Spain – Ostia – Rome: Evidence of Economic and Artistic Relationships from the Excavations of the Palazzo Valentini in Rom" (Fulltext)

 

4. Ria Berg (University of Tampere)

Iconography of the Modius in Ostia - Visualizing Ethnicity and Exchange
This paper discusses the uses of the image of the grain measure modius in the iconographic contexts of the harbour town of Roman Ostia. The modius, a large cylindrical container of standard size, was the most important instrument for controlling the amounts of grain arriving to the harbour and transferred to its horrea. In Ostian mosaics, this vessel became the symbol of some economic actors of primary importance in the Ostian society: the guild of grain measurers and the naviculari responsible for the grain transport from different areas of the Mediterranean. Interestingly, in the mosaics of the Piazzale delle Corporazioni, this modest trading container is represented in a similar way as the sacral vessels such as kraters and kantharoi: central in position, heraldically surrounded by symmetrical elements and topped by crowning leaves. In fact, modius, as the headress of various divinities, in primis Serapis, could also be bestowed with religious significance. In Ostian coroplastics and minor arts (statuettes, plastic vases and lamps), the polos-headdress is one of the primary markers of ethnicity and otherness, besides divine status. In this contribution, the iconography of modius, as represented on a wide spectrum of supports in the material culture of Ostia through the imperial age, will be analyzed as a symbol of intercultural exchange and of translating and interpreting measures between different commercial areas, and the sacralization of such communication.

"Il modius ostiense – simbolo dell’unità e della diversità economica dell’Impero" (Fulltext)

 

5. Marcello Turci (Aix-Marseille University)

The development of the maritime district of Ostia from the 3th to the beginning of the 6th century A.D.
The maritime district of Ostia was interested during the Hadrian’s period by an overall urban reorganization, evident in sumptuous thermal complexes, like the baths of Porta Marina, probably erected by the imperial family, the Silenus baths, located as the previous ones on the shoreline and the Terme Marittime as well, in close relationship with the residential complex of Garden Houses.
This framework, consolidating in the 2nd century and during the Severan dynasty, is in contrast with the situation starting from the late 3th century and the beginning of 4th century. In fact, after the period of “Military Anarchy” we can see, on the one hand, the resumption of a construction activity at the baths of Porta Marina (whose inscriptions provide documentation of restorations until the beginning of 6th century); on the other, the edification of little balnea along the coastal road.
The renewed building impulse seem to find its economic roots into the development of the coastal road network, with the creation of the Via Severiana and probably with the building of the Aurelian forum erected ad mare and where the praetorium publicum was late established (Aurel., Historia Augusta, XLV, 2). Thermae and balnea, as evidenced by Y. Thébert, reflects roman society politically, socialy and, in the end, economically.
Aim of this contribution is to put in lights how interregional trade along the coastal road from the cities of the Italia suburbucaria in direction of Rome, became an important impact factor for the development of the suburban district of Ostia with the restoration of ancient baths and the creation of new ones.

"The Development of the Maritime District of Ostia from the 3rd to the Beginning of the 6th Century AD" (Fulltext)