Ostia

OSTIA. - City and suburban see in the province of Rome. By decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory of 22 May 1948, the area of the diocese is limited to the ancient city and the castle of O. (AAS, 40 [1948], pp. 341-42). It has a population of 3,700 inhabitants gathered in one parish; it has one male religious community and one female.

At the Roman Council of 313 the bishop Maximus took part (PL 8, 747); in the time of Pope Gelasius there was the bishop Bellator (494-95). Pope Eugene III in 1150 united the see of O. with that of Velletri, and so it remained until 5 May 1914, when Bl. Pius X by motu proprio detached it again, assigning it to the cardinal dean (AAS, 6 [1914], pp. 219-20). Napoleon I by a decree of 5 Aug. 1810 had sought to suppress the diocese. The bishops of O. were the popes: Odo of Lagery, later Bl. Urban II (1088-99); Lamberto of Fiagnano, later Honorius II (1124-30); Ubaldo Allucingoli, later Lucius III (1181-85); Ugolino of the counts of Segni, later Gregory IX (1227-41); Rinaldo of the counts of Segni, later Alexander IV (1254-61); Peter of Tarentaise, later Bl. Innocent V (1276); Niccolò Boccasini, later Bl. Benedict XI (1303-1304); Étienne Aubert, later Innocent VI (1352-62); Giuliano della Rovere, later Julius II (1503-13); Alessandro Farnese, later Paul III (1534-49); Gian Pietro Carafa, later Paul IV (1560-65). In O. the Hieronymian Martyrology indicates under 20 May Aurea (v.), whose Passio is without value (BHL, 810); under 16 July Ilarnius, unknown; under 23 Aug. Cyriacus and Archelaus; under 19 Oct. St. Asterius, recalled in an inscription of the Lateran Museum (O. Marucchi, I monumenti del museo Pio Lateranense, Milan 1910, pp. 11, 28; the basilica of Asterius is recalled in the Libellus precum [O. Guenther, Epistolae imperatorum et pontificum, etc. in CSEL, XXXV, II, p. 29], was restored in 687 by Sergius II [Lib. Pont., I, pp. 376, 380] and later by Leo III [ibid., II, p. 14]). Under 22 Nov. and 22 Dec. are recalled Felix, Demetrius, Honoratus. According to the indication inserted in the biography of Pope Mark in the Lib. Pont. (I, pp. 80-81; 202), the bishop of O. had the use of the pallium and the right to consecrate the pope (v.). The anointing with oil in the consecrations of emperors was likewise performed by the bishop of O. The Cathedral was originally the church dedicated to the apostles Peter, Paul and John, attributed to Constantine in the Lib. Pont. (I, p. 183); then it was the church of St. Aurea, which was already in poor condition and without a roof in the time of Sergius I (687-701), who restored it (ibid., I, pp. 376, 380); Leo III (795-816) also remade the roofs (ibid., II, p. 14); the building is also recalled in the biography of Leo IV (847-55; ibid., p. 118). O. was devastated in 408 by Alaric, in 536 by Vitiges; Gregory IV girded it with walls (Gregoriopoli) around the year 830 (ibid., II, p. 164). The abandonment of O. is due to the loss of maritime and commercial traffic as a supply route for the city of Rome. The silting produced by the Tiber is about 4 m. per year; at present the shore is 6 km. from the Roman city. On 26 May 1159 the people of O., represented by a procurator, promised Pope Adrian IV to supply the Pontiff each year with two boats of wood, one for Christmas and the other for Easter, depositing them at the Marmorata or at Ripa.

Enrico Josi
ARCHAEOLOGY. -

The first military
colony of Rome,
the Castrum (Livy, I,
33; VII, 25; CIL, I,

(phot. Fides)

Yaho, Ivory Coast (French Africa) - Rome, Exhibition of Missionary Art 1950.

of Halicarnassus, III, 44; Eutropius, I, 5; Festus, 197;
Cicero, Rep., II, 5, 33; Servius, Aen., VI, 816; St. Jerome, Chron., p. 334). The possibility of a colonization predating the Castrum is admitted by some modern historians such as Carcopino, de Sanctis, Frank, etc. Its position at the mouth of the Tiber, from which it takes its name (Strabo, III, 145; Livy XXII, 11), facilitated the rapid commercial development of the city, about 16 miles from Rome. Between 100-106 A.D. Trajan, with a bold project, created the port of O. (Pliny, Paneg., 29; Juvenal, 12, 75; Notizie degli scavi, 1925, p. 54), already begun by Claudius (Suetonius, Claud., 20; Cassius Dio, 60, 11; Pliny, Nat. hist., XVI, 76; XXXVI, 14), greatly increasing the importance of the city, which became the seat of vast annonary, corporate, administrative and religious organizations. Constantine took away its municipal rights, assigning them to its port, which had become "Portus Romae" (v. Notizie degli scavi, 1925, p. 73; CIL, XIV, 612). The invasion of the Vandals in 455 was a grave blow for O., marking its decline.

The excavations carried out at intervals by Visconti, by D. Vaglieri and by prof. Guido Calza (1913-46) testify to the growing development of the city in its public buildings, dwellings, temples, warehouses and in its street network. The very rich epigraphic collection gathered in vol. XIV of the CIL and in the supplement of Wickert (1930), with many other inscriptions publ. by G. Calza, in Notizie degli scavi and in Epigraphica, and the fasti ostienses publ. by A. Degrassi (Fasti et elogia, Rome 1937), added to a very vast artistic heritage publ. by G. Becatti, R. Calza, G. Ricci and M. Squarciapino, in Bull. d'arte, Bull. comunale, Notizie degli scavi, increase the importance of O. for the study of classical antiquity (G. Calza, in Pauly-Wissowa, XVIII, II [1942], coll. 1654-64; R. Calza, Scavi di O., Topografia generale, Rome 1952).

To these martyrs must be referred a small oratory of the 5th-6th centuries, built "in loco martiri" near the theater discovered in 1910 (D. Vaglieri, in Nuovo bull. d'arch. crit., 16 [1910], p. 57 ff.; J. Carcopino, in Journal des savants, 9 [1911], p. 46; F. Fornari, in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 36 [1916-17], p. 37 ff.). In the oratory was found a sarcophagus of the 3rd century, whose lid bears the Christian epitaph "Hic Quiriacus dormit in pace". A manuscript of the 12th century, recently discovered by Fr. A. Casamassa, attests that the place was still known.

Two other rooms of late date, also on the decumanus maximus (before reaching the Forum), one because of the building in the form of a Greek cross and the other because of the discovery of a small column with the figure of the Good Shepherd (G. Moretti, in Notizie degli scavi, 1920, p. 41; R. Calza, Museo ostiense, Rome 1947, n. 151), must have been used for Christian worship. Important is the discovery of a large Christian basilica, with an adjoining baptistery (G. Calza,

2, p. 257), founded around 335 B.C. (J. Carcopino, Virgile et les origines d'Ostie, Paris 1919). Its tufa walls, 5.40 m. high (G. Calza, in Notizie degli scavi, 1914, p. 246; 1923, p. 178 ff.; T. Frank, in Am. Journ. of Arch., 1918, p. 182) mark out a rectangle of 193 × 120 m. within the imperial city. Legendary tradition traces the founding of O. back to Aeneas (Virgil, Aeneid, VIII) and some ancient historians attribute it to Ancus Marcius (Dionysius

A basilica of the Constantinian age discovered at O., in Rend. Accad. pont., 1940, p. 63 ff.; ibid., 1941-42, p. 135 ff.). That the building was devoted to Christian worship is confirmed by the inscription on the architrave of the entrance to the baptistery, which says: IN GEON FISON TIGRIS EUFRATA CRISTIANORUM SUMITE FONTES. Calza, who attributed it to the 4th century, wished to recognize in it the basilica of Sts. Peter, Paul and John, donated by Constantine to the city of O. (Lib. Pont., I, p. 376). The dating has however raised many reservations and objections, both because of the type of the capitals, which does not correspond to the period, and because of the inorganic character and poverty of the construction, which suit neither the period nor an imperial donation (H. Fuhrmann, in Epigraphica, 3 [1941], p. 103 ff.; G. Becatti, Case ostiensi del tardo Impero, Rome 1948, p. 201). The hypotheses of A. v. Gerkan (Die christl. Anlage in O., in Röm. Quartalschrift, 47 [1939], p. 15-23), who wants to see in it a school of catechumens, are without convincing foundations, while Th. Klauser (Die Inschrift der neugefund. altchristl. Bauanlage im O., ibid., p. 25-30) considers it a Christian library. It remains an enigma, however, to whom the Basilica could be dedicated, since among the churches known to have existed at O. one must exclude that of St. Lawrence (Acta SS. Iunii, V, Paris 1867, p. 38), which was built "in porta quae nunc usque Laurentia nuncupatur", and that of Asterius, who together with his companions in the faith was martyred "foras muros Ostiae civitatis".

Beneath the west side of S. Aurea, the present basilica of O., there has been brought to light, among other things, an apsidal room with tombs, with the characteristics of a Christian construction. A precious discovery was the finding of a broken small column 70 cm. high with the fragmentary name of St. Aurea S. ad con ductus of the 5th century, which confirms the existence of the ancient church beneath the present one. In March 1945, in the adjoining courtyard, the memorial of St. Monica, who died at O. in Nov. 387 (St. Augustine, Confessions, IX, 8-12), casually came to light again; a little more than a third was found of the metrical inscription already composed for the tomb of St. Monica at the beginning of the 5th century by the proconsul A. Auchenius Bassus and whose text has been preserved through about 12 codices (A. Casamassa, in Rend. Acc. pont., 1945, p. 15 ff.).

Of another Christian building there has recently been found a large apse built in the frigidarium of a bath building of the Hadrianic age on the Via della Foce (G. Calza, Nuove testimonianze del cristianesimo ad O., in Rend. Acc. pont., 1949-51, p. 12) and overlying a subterranean mithraeum. In the room an incised inscription has been found on two pillars. A patrician domus in the area of the cardo maximus on the Via della Caupona has its northern entrance adorned with a mosaic representing a chalice with a fish: two others appear at the base of the cup (G.

Calza, Nuove testimonianze, cit., p. 126 ff., fig. 3); another fish, carved within a large basin of the courtyard, led to the thought that it was used as a baptistery (G. Becatti, Case ostiensi, cit., p. 121). Around the chapel of S. Ercolano (adjoining the present cemetery of O.), a suggestive construction of the 5th-6th centuries, about 100 Christian inscriptions were found, confirming the hypothesis that this zone formed part of the ancient Ostian Christian cemetery nucleus (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. d'arch. crist., 1866, p. 49; L. Paschetto,

(phot. Excavations of the Superintendency of Ostia)
OSTIA - Monogrammatic cross on a
small pillar of an oratory on the Via
della foce.

O., Rome 1912, p. 180). They bear the distinctive Ostian formula "dormit in pace" or "cum Deus voluerit, volet, permiserit."

Other Christian memorials of O. are represented by some sculptures, fragments of sarcophagi and minor objects, such as a sarcophagus (similar to the one found in the oratory near the theater) coming from the area of S. Ercolano as a Christian epitaph (P. E. Visconti, Dichiaraz. di un sarcofago in O., in Atti Pontif. accad., 15 [1864], pp. 159-71), nos. 1875, 1937, 1975, 2009-10a of the CIL, XIV and nos.

481029 (?), 5204 (?), 5232-41, 5312 (?) of Wickert's supplement to that same volume, and nos. 506, 525, 541, 558, 595, 617, 642, 649, 686, 746, 779, 801, 806, 821, 836, 840, 859 of the Magazzini di O., among which a fragment, 506, with the resurrection of Lazarus (G. Calza, Nuove testimonianze, cit., p. 132, fig. 7). Two circular (or semicircular) marble tables, of which part of the rims survives, one with depictions of fish (no. 617) and the other with the figures of the Apostles (no. 595) reproduced within the niches, could have been intended for liturgical use or for the Christian agape. A type of marble sign (R. Calza, Museo ostiense, cit., no. 130) found in 1939 in a kind of public hall surrounded by benches and pillars in the middle may also be of Christian content. It depicts in the foreground two notarii seated before large books with the stylus in hand and an orator who has climbed onto the podium, and in the background, against the backdrop of a curtain, a group of listeners who with various gestures express their admiration for the speaker's words. It could be a meeting place for theological discussions (H. Marrou, St Augustin et la fin du monde antique, Paris 1939, p. 404, with the ancient texts on the subject) or a school for catechumens. Also from the most recent excavations comes a togated statue from the beginning of the 5th century, for which hypotheses were advanced that it depicts either C. Aurelius Symmachus, the famous praefectus annonae, an Ostian landowner (R. Calza, in Bull. Com., 1941, p. 113 ff.), or his staunch opponent in faith, Ragonius Vicentius Celsus, a figure well known at O. and at Portus (G. Becatti, op.cit., p. 216; R. Calza, Museo ostiense, cit., p. 13, no. 55).

O. is not lacking in objects of the minor arts, such as lamps with Christian symbols, mostly of local manufacture, by a certain Annius Ser... (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 2nd series, 1 [1870], p. 80 ff.), frames of small lead mirrors, bronze rings or glassware bearing clear allusions to the symbols of the Christian faith. To the finds of a primarily Christian character must be added those, very few, of Jewish character. To the latter refers a large fragmentary inscription, found in 1905 near Castelporziano and which attests the presence of a large Jewish community (gerusia) in the territory of O. (E. Ghislanzoni, in Notizie degli scavi, 1906, p. 115 ff.) and a tomb found in the sepulcher of Porta Laurentina, in 1936, which could have belonged to a Jew, judging by the name "M. Baenit," analogous to the one mentioned in the Corpus Inscrip. Jud., Vatican City 1936, 671 (G. Calza, in Notizie degli Scavi, 1938, pp. 36, 48). - See pl. XXX.

Raissa Calza