Went here in the late 1990s with my late husband (we went to Italy 18 times) and I haven’t been back without him but will be returning this year to revisit the familiar haunts and the ones I haven’t seen in years. This is a great historical tour, I’ve appreciated the work of save Rome for years now. Thank you.
We never got there, but the Tiber in Rome was still horrible, looks like it has been all cleared up beautifully now. Would love to return and spend more time, and definitely visit Ostia. I hope you get to the no.west of Rome to the Etruscan tombs, ruins, it's haunting and inspiring and they're possibly your ancestors, too?
@@AncientRomeLive have you ever been to Britain nearly all the city's. We're founded by Rome. Including my city. I'm a Geordie from Newcastle upon Tyne it was founded by the Romans as. Pons aelius we got lots of cool Roman artifacts over here , Roman baths, Hadrian's wall, Roman amphitheatres , Roman roads, Roman toilets, Roman statues, Roman armour , Roman coins , even Roman skeletons, If you haven't visited UK do. We were founded by Rome and part of the empire for nearly 400 years,
We visited Ostia Antica in 2021, right after the pandemic, spend half a day there and barely cover 20%, there's so much to see and areas to walk around inside and outside of buildings, is really an overwhelming experience, so much preserved, so much reconstructed and so much more still to be discovered. Thank you for the walkaround, we did not reach the area you showed in the video.
yes I see those gardi soldiers in red capes and a spear on every street corner:) a whole bunch of them are going on a barge to complete a Germani post assignment😛
Gorgeous... simply gorgeous. I studied Classical Roman history as part of my undergrad.... I never could imagine how much of Ostia Antica is still preserved.
I am surprised so much of the structure stands in place. Isn't is just amazing to see the ancient art work and know someone, with skilled hands, created it over 2,000 years ago!
Fantastic video. Thanks so much for giving us a ground view, personal look at these structures. I also appreciate the calm insightful commentary on the structures and how they were used and thought of by the people at the time.
I wish I would have had a guide like Darius when I was there in 2002, but I still had a great time spending the entire day virtually alone in Ostia. It was so nice being in a relaxed environment where you could just sit or ponder the site in quiet contemplation... the exact opposite of a site like Pompeii. I'm glad my college professor spoke so enthusiastically about Ostia, it made it a must-see side trip for me when I traveled to Rome.
One of the coolest memories for me was stumbling on the Mithraeum purely by accident. I probably shouldn't have been going into underground areas, but nothing was blocked off and curiosity compelled me to explore anything subterranean. I dropped into a small underground chamber and at the end of it stood a fragmented, but mostly intact, statue of Mithras.
I took a tour of Ostia in September 2023. The amphitheater and the mosaics in the marketplace were fascinating. Are there any ancient sites that still have their original marble facade? Or has all the marble been stripped?
Thank you for another interesting walk-through. From what I understand, Ostia Antica has quite a few ruins of residential insulae which reveal quite a bit of how they were designed and built, yes?
Este minunat tot ce faceți ca istoric și ca arheolog de atâta timp, în ceea ce privește istoria antică,mai ales Roma antică!Ostia este una din minunile lumii romane,care ne încântă cu drumurile și clădirile sale!
Thanks, Darius! It’s a great place and not often crowded. I go there almost every time I have to catch an early flight from Fiumicino, staying in some B&B nearby, and even though I been visiting Ostia several times I always see something “new”. The museum has been closed for some time and I hope it’ll reopen before September when I’m going there again. Other gems, in the area, well worth visiting is Portus, with a fine naval museum, and Isola Sacra, with fantastic graves from Ostia’s and Portus’ time.
Darius, I really appreciate your content. I find ancient Italian history in general really fascinating (not just Roman history). I've seen some of your videos on the Etruscans - will you make videos on some of the other less well-known ancient Italian civilisations such as the Oscans/Samnites?
Thank you! We have a lot more to cover - including many other Italic people of ancient times. Stay tuned! The topics are endless / we are working on more support to create more content. Definitely ramping up output this year!
If you get a chance, head down to Paestum and there are great Samnite artifacts in the museum there. Paestum is a really great day trip and the Greek temples are awe-inspiring.
Once again, thank you Darius, for educating us, the public. It is like taking a class with an expert who also knows how to speak attractively in order not to lose the our of his listeners. Thank you. Totally fantastic. I wished some of our droning professors (who put the students into coma) would learn from you. (I just wisheds you were not in a rush on this occasion, and would stop and show and expain the details as you have with your other Roman new digs--like you did for Domus Tiberiiana.)
Another fantastic video. Gratias tibi! You’ve got a great narrative voice with a unique cadence that lends itself well to edification. I appreciate it!
Great video of Ostia. I've been there a few times and suggest Ostia to friends visiting Rome, that it is "can't miss" for wandering ancient ruins. So much more accessible than Pompeii and not crowded at all. I wish there were better documentation and maps, but every time was a great experience. Can I suggest some videos on Aquilea? I've visited and read about the city , but find few videos. Thanks again for all your work!
Ostia Antica is such an incredible gem. Short train ride to such a large site. Pompeii and Herculaneum get a lot of the limelight but Ostia was breathtaking. It's also so open and relatively quiet as not many people, unfortunately, visit the site. It would've been far more enjoyable with a guide like you do here but stunning nonetheless.
Darius, can you talk a little about the landscape. I am curious about the trees that line the ancient streets and apartment dwelling areas. Clearly the trees are not thousands of years old, but they do seem as if they were planted long long ago for aesthetic reasons to the area. Why would they have been planted like that when the ruins had long been crumbling? When would they have been planted and by whom? Is it part of an old restoration where landscape was addressed before the buildings were even being restored? I just can’t come up with a logic in my mind as to when they would have been put there. They seem to fit exactly where they would have been needed even for the ancient times. To provide shade etc, but they clearly arent that old. Thanks. I really enjoy your channel. I have been to Italy and it is my favorite country I have ever visited thus far. I am fascinated by its history and architecture always.
Was that a public bath, a private home or a bath complex for an apartment complex? I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Always amazing videos. I am watch one or two every night. Thank you! ❤
Great visit! Some areas with frescoes are surprising well preserved! Nice to recognize some walls in opus reticulatum. Do you know if medieval or later structures had to be removed to reach the Roman vestiges?
@@AncientRomeLive Interesting. I was under the impression that Ostia was abandoned and silted over by Tiber floods, and nothing was built over it. From what I remember, anything standing above the layers of silt was carted off as building material during the Medieval era. I might be wrong though, as I haven't studied the site and a long time.
Ostia is one of the few places in "ancient" Italy that I highly recommend hiring a guide. It is very large, and there aren't any really good modern guide books. Plus a human guide will get you up into the insulae!
Is the Mithraem that's underground with a statue at the end accessible to the public? I went there in 2019 and I think I found the correct structure but couldn't get inside (you never know if a get is protecting a treasure or a bunch of yard equipment in places like this). I know the original statue was put in the museum, at least back then. Just google "ostia antica mithraem" to see the place I wanted to see.
I was surprised to see all the rectangular brick faced concrete columns in the Caseggiato di Serapide. Apparently the Romans used carved stone columns for their temples, but concrete columns for commercial area buildings.
Darius, by the drawing of the town that is a sizeable constructed area. What happened to the rubble? Was a part taken away to be used elsewhere? Or does it remain underground? That must be a lot of brick but perhaps it's mostly disintegrated over time.
Of all the ancient Roman sites, Ostia has the best potential to be reborn as a living city. While the idea is only fanciful it would be an extraordinary social experiment to demonstrate the daily life of 2nd-3rd century Romans. The economy wouldn't be accurately represented since labor would hold to modern civilized standards, but a tourist based economy is possible. Barring modern technology might not be realistic but keeping its impact minimal would help enhance the experience.
I was there for an afternoon last summer. Ostia Antica is less famous than Pompeii or even Herculaneum so it doesn't get swarmed by tourists as much. I found many quiet and solitary areas of the city as in the video, especially once you get away from the main road and the forum (where there were just a few tourist groups).
We have been to Ostia hundreds of times - led 7 years of excavations (romanculture.org) in Ostia… that said you will frequently find yourself all alone … it’s a heavily trafficked site - but not nearly as crowded as Pompeii…
It is ostensibly an imperial brick city 2-3C AD… that said / yea lots of restoration work - but definitely an authentic experience that links you to the experience of of walking though imperial Roman neighborhoods ✌️
Its not quite as fancy as Pompeii, as it was a) a more of a working city (more of the city is warehouses/industrial districts, less of it is affluent wealthy houses - although you still have plenty of those - compared to Pompeii), b) already largely abandoned by the time it was "preserved" and c) the method of preservation (mud) left the majority of buildings less preserved than in Pompeii. That said, you get to go into and wander around the majority of buildings to your heart's desire, whereas Pompeii you are cordoned off and have to look in from the outside.
Take your TIME man, you blow right through everything. You don't give viewers enough time to appreciate what they're looking at like the small details such as the craftsmanship of the architecture or the marble overlays on the bath rails, or the artistic details of the frescoes. Slow down.
![ARGENTINA vs. BOLIVIA [6-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/C3wPtKNbAOA/mqdefault.jpg)
I went in 2000 but not in this part of the city. It is so extensive it is difficult to see in one day. Your video makes me want to go back, thank you.
That mosaic floor is stunning and superbly well preserved. And some of the art work. Genius brickwork.
We agree!
Middle Eastern mosaic art is better.
Went here in the late 1990s with my late husband (we went to Italy 18 times) and I haven’t been back without him but will be returning this year to revisit the familiar haunts and the ones I haven’t seen in years. This is a great historical tour, I’ve appreciated the work of save Rome for years now. Thank you.
Thank you! Yes the site is in great shape! The museum is about to reopen! Now you can also go with the same ticket to Portus!
We never got there, but the Tiber in Rome was still horrible, looks like it has been all cleared up beautifully now. Would love to return and spend more time, and definitely visit Ostia. I hope you get to the no.west of Rome to the Etruscan tombs, ruins, it's haunting and inspiring and they're possibly your ancestors, too?
@@AncientRomeLive have you ever been to Britain nearly all the city's. We're founded by Rome. Including my city. I'm a Geordie from Newcastle upon Tyne it was founded by the Romans as. Pons aelius we got lots of cool Roman artifacts over here ,
Roman baths, Hadrian's wall, Roman amphitheatres , Roman roads, Roman toilets, Roman statues, Roman armour , Roman coins , even Roman skeletons,
If you haven't visited UK do. We were founded by Rome and part of the empire for nearly 400 years,
@@da90sReAlvlocWhat about cities in Staffordshire and Shropshire?
I was there 5 years ago and was amazed . I was almost alone walking through such a well-preserved Roman port town 💯
Time to go back- great preservation work going on!
@@AncientRomeLive Is there a optimal time of year to visit? I figure you would know being a full-time resident.
We visited Ostia Antica in 2021, right after the pandemic, spend half a day there and barely cover 20%, there's so much to see and areas to walk around inside and outside of buildings, is really an overwhelming experience, so much preserved, so much reconstructed and so much more still to be discovered. Thank you for the walkaround, we did not reach the area you showed in the video.
Thank you. We just scratched the surface. Look at our older Ostia series and look forward to more!
What an incredible site- and the TREES! So beautiful! One can almost see the echoes of the past walking around there. Thank you for the tour!
yes I see those gardi soldiers in red capes and a spear on every street corner:) a whole bunch of them are going on a barge to complete a Germani post assignment😛
Love Ostia and have been several times. It never disappoints and is never crowded.
Gorgeous... simply gorgeous.
I studied Classical Roman history as part of my undergrad.... I never could imagine how much of Ostia Antica is still preserved.
Ostia Antica is one of my favourite places on the planet
I can only imagine Rome in all it's glory. The buildings must have been so beautiful.
I am surprised so much of the structure stands in place. Isn't is just amazing to see the ancient art work and know someone, with skilled hands, created it over 2,000 years ago!
Ostia had the good fortune of being covered in layers of mud after it was abandoned, which preserved a great deal of it.
Absolutely amazing! How I would love to walk along those ancient pathways. Thanks for the tour!
Fantastic video. Thanks so much for giving us a ground view, personal look at these structures. I also appreciate the calm insightful commentary on the structures and how they were used and thought of by the people at the time.
We thank you!
I wish I would have had a guide like Darius when I was there in 2002, but I still had a great time spending the entire day virtually alone in Ostia. It was so nice being in a relaxed environment where you could just sit or ponder the site in quiet contemplation... the exact opposite of a site like Pompeii. I'm glad my college professor spoke so enthusiastically about Ostia, it made it a must-see side trip for me when I traveled to Rome.
Yes we just a class there today / marvelous outing!
Everything is amazing, but also this part of the world has great trees and bushes that I noticed too
The tall Italian pines (their name escapes me) are really impressive and worth seeing all on their own.
Highly underappreciated area.
We've been there a few times and it never fails to amaze us.
Superb! Great preparation for a visit. Thank you, Darius.
Thank you. Will be in Rome in two weeks and looking forward to visit Ostia Antica. 😃
Hope you enjoy it!
One of the coolest memories for me was stumbling on the Mithraeum purely by accident. I probably shouldn't have been going into underground areas, but nothing was blocked off and curiosity compelled me to explore anything subterranean. I dropped into a small underground chamber and at the end of it stood a fragmented, but mostly intact, statue of Mithras.
Haha we know what you mean. Darius took our Roman city course today / back to being fully accessible
I took a tour of Ostia in September 2023. The amphitheater and the mosaics in the marketplace were fascinating. Are there any ancient sites that still have their original marble facade? Or has all the marble been stripped?
Beautiful, love your tours! Grazie.
I love that place. I’ve never been but I watch videos often. Especially Prowalk Tours. He covers so much of Italy.
Thank you for another interesting walk-through. From what I understand, Ostia Antica has quite a few ruins of residential insulae which reveal quite a bit of how they were designed and built, yes?
Absolutely - more videos on the way!
Marvellous and mesmerising tour as always Darius. Thank you.
We thank you!
Este minunat tot ce faceți ca istoric și ca arheolog de atâta timp, în ceea ce privește istoria antică,mai ales Roma antică!Ostia este una din minunile lumii romane,care ne încântă cu drumurile și clădirile sale!
We appreciate it!
Amazing place.
It really is!
Thanks for the wonderful video!
Thank you too!
Thanks, Darius! It’s a great place and not often crowded. I go there almost every time I have to catch an early flight from Fiumicino, staying in some B&B nearby, and even though I been visiting Ostia several times I always see something “new”. The museum has been closed for some time and I hope it’ll reopen before September when I’m going there again. Other gems, in the area, well worth visiting is Portus, with a fine naval museum, and Isola Sacra, with fantastic graves from Ostia’s and Portus’ time.
It’s supposed be o open shortly!
Very enjoyable. We’ve visited Rome and Pompei but never been to Ostia. You have a new subscriber.
FANTASTIC! I never heard of until this video.👏
Thanks
Very good thanks 🎉
I can see it was built to last! Very good work and I love those ruins! When I was a child, I would had a blast there!
i wish someday can visit rome and this
Darius, I really appreciate your content. I find ancient Italian history in general really fascinating (not just Roman history). I've seen some of your videos on the Etruscans - will you make videos on some of the other less well-known ancient Italian civilisations such as the Oscans/Samnites?
Thank you! We have a lot more to cover - including many other Italic people of ancient times. Stay tuned! The topics are endless / we are working on more support to create more content. Definitely ramping up output this year!
@@AncientRomeLive Fantastic! looking forward to it.
If you get a chance, head down to Paestum and there are great Samnite artifacts in the museum there. Paestum is a really great day trip and the Greek temples are awe-inspiring.
Once again, thank you Darius, for educating us, the public. It is like taking a class with an expert who also knows how to speak attractively in order not to lose the our of his listeners. Thank you. Totally fantastic. I wished some of our droning professors (who put the students into coma) would learn from you.
(I just wisheds you were not in a rush on this occasion, and would stop and show and expain the details as you have with your other Roman new digs--like you did for Domus Tiberiiana.)
Another fantastic video. Gratias tibi! You’ve got a great narrative voice with a unique cadence that lends itself well to edification. I appreciate it!
Thank you kindly!
thanks for the trip. I didn't see that mosaic 10 years ago 😕A few changes since I visited!
Lots more to see
Darius, thank you for another of your fantastic walks!
Glad you like them!
Ostia is great. Spending one day just isn't enough
Love going to Ostia Antica!
Great video of Ostia. I've been there a few times and suggest Ostia to friends visiting Rome, that it is "can't miss" for wandering ancient ruins. So much more accessible than Pompeii and not crowded at all. I wish there were better documentation and maps, but every time was a great experience.
Can I suggest some videos on Aquilea? I've visited and read about the city , but find few videos. Thanks again for all your work!
Very interesting vlog Darius. Thank you. More vlogs please from Ostia Antica. Its a fascinating site with so much to see....
Thank you! Will do!
Ostia Antica is such an incredible gem. Short train ride to such a large site. Pompeii and Herculaneum get a lot of the limelight but Ostia was breathtaking. It's also so open and relatively quiet as not many people, unfortunately, visit the site. It would've been far more enjoyable with a guide like you do here but stunning nonetheless.
Darius, can you talk a little about the landscape. I am curious about the trees that line the ancient streets and apartment dwelling areas. Clearly the trees are not thousands of years old, but they do seem as if they were planted long long ago for aesthetic reasons to the area. Why would they have been planted like that when the ruins had long been crumbling? When would they have been planted and by whom? Is it part of an old restoration where landscape was addressed before the buildings were even being restored? I just can’t come up with a logic in my mind as to when they would have been put there. They seem to fit exactly where they would have been needed even for the ancient times. To provide shade etc, but they clearly arent that old. Thanks. I really enjoy your channel. I have been to Italy and it is my favorite country I have ever visited thus far. I am fascinated by its history and architecture always.
We will cover ancient landscape in a separate video … the pine trees visible go back to Fascist era excavations
I was there 20 years ago, and my friend and I were the only people there!
Was that a public bath, a private home or a bath complex for an apartment complex? I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Always amazing videos. I am watch one or two every night. Thank you! ❤
Can't wait!
Lovely little tour! Grazie! Spending a month there this summer. Does your organization give tours?
fresh olives from Ostia!! Uhmm 🤔that market street must have looked stunning :)
Still impressive ruins!
two places of antiquity are my favorites. Ostia Antica and Hercolonium
Great,
Great visit!
Some areas with frescoes are surprising well preserved!
Nice to recognize some walls in opus reticulatum.
Do you know if medieval or later structures had to be removed to reach the Roman vestiges?
Thank you. Yes a lot of the later phases were blasted away.. but in another video we can show you some later period gems!
@@AncientRomeLive Interesting. I was under the impression that Ostia was abandoned and silted over by Tiber floods, and nothing was built over it. From what I remember, anything standing above the layers of silt was carted off as building material during the Medieval era. I might be wrong though, as I haven't studied the site and a long time.
For me, Ostia Antica is a must visit site. I am curious, is there remains of the ancient working port itself?
starts off at the most of holy places :) I have never been there and so much still standing :)
Wonderful site to explore- we are still exploring!
Ostia is one of the few places in "ancient" Italy that I highly recommend hiring a guide. It is very large, and there aren't any really good modern guide books. Plus a human guide will get you up into the insulae!
Yea it’s a daunting site!! Lots of fun for the whole family to explore and go upstairs. See our older Ostia series on RUclips!
Is the Mithraem that's underground with a statue at the end accessible to the public? I went there in 2019 and I think I found the correct structure but couldn't get inside (you never know if a get is protecting a treasure or a bunch of yard equipment in places like this). I know the original statue was put in the museum, at least back then. Just google "ostia antica mithraem" to see the place I wanted to see.
I was surprised to see all the rectangular brick faced concrete columns in the Caseggiato di Serapide.
Apparently the Romans used carved stone columns for their temples, but concrete columns for commercial area buildings.
Its a good place to visit, not as overcrowded
Darius, by the drawing of the town that is a sizeable constructed area. What happened to the rubble? Was a part taken away to be used elsewhere? Or does it remain underground?
That must be a lot of brick but perhaps it's mostly disintegrated over time.
Renaissance excavations- piecemeal - gave way to huge dig under Mussolini- rapid work - much was lost!
Of all the ancient Roman sites, Ostia has the best potential to be reborn as a living city. While the idea is only fanciful it would be an extraordinary social experiment to demonstrate the daily life of 2nd-3rd century Romans. The economy wouldn't be accurately represented since labor would hold to modern civilized standards, but a tourist based economy is possible. Barring modern technology might not be realistic but keeping its impact minimal would help enhance the experience.
❤
Did Ostia actually function in concert with the ports of Claudius and Trajan or did it operate independently?
In conjunction but Portus took on a life of its own eventually.
Did you have a private view or is it really this quiet?
It was very quiet when we visited.
I was there for an afternoon last summer. Ostia Antica is less famous than Pompeii or even Herculaneum so it doesn't get swarmed by tourists as much. I found many quiet and solitary areas of the city as in the video, especially once you get away from the main road and the forum (where there were just a few tourist groups).
We have been to Ostia hundreds of times - led 7 years of excavations (romanculture.org) in Ostia… that said you will frequently find yourself all alone … it’s a heavily trafficked site - but not nearly as crowded as Pompeii…
Can you please help how to get there from Airport Fuimicino or from Eur park train station or by bus
The brickwork looks like it's been heavily reconstructed?
It is ostensibly an imperial brick city 2-3C AD… that said / yea lots of restoration work - but definitely an authentic experience that links you to the experience of of walking though imperial Roman neighborhoods ✌️
@@AncientRomeLiveI was just looking at the area in Google world recently and imagining a walk around Lago Traiano😊
Its not quite as fancy as Pompeii, as it was a) a more of a working city (more of the city is warehouses/industrial districts, less of it is affluent wealthy houses - although you still have plenty of those - compared to Pompeii), b) already largely abandoned by the time it was "preserved" and c) the method of preservation (mud) left the majority of buildings less preserved than in Pompeii.
That said, you get to go into and wander around the majority of buildings to your heart's desire, whereas Pompeii you are cordoned off and have to look in from the outside.
Costs almost nothing to get there. Metro to Piramide then Local train
Take your TIME man, you blow right through everything. You don't give viewers enough time to appreciate what they're looking at like the small details such as the craftsmanship of the architecture or the marble overlays on the bath rails, or the artistic details of the frescoes. Slow down.
This is completely insane, you have no idea, if it might explode. 😡
What on earth are you on about?