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Ostia: A Quick Orientation Page

One of many beautiful houses in town:
the House of Amor and Psyche.

I have a lot of photos of Ostia taken over several days of visits in 1997 and 1998, and I was fortunate enough to attend the 2d International Ostia Symposium in November 1998. The page before you could not possibly ever replace the IGO (Internet Group Ostia) website that is the place to go to for good information — see navigation bar below for external sites — but I'll be putting a few pages up here from time to time. For the time being, just:

[ 2 pages, 4 photos ]

The atmosphere today in the Caserma dei Vigili (in good English, that's the Firemen's Barracks) is of course very different from what it must have been. Like much of Ostia, it's now a beautiful, peaceful place; a courtyard with a number of particularly attractive inscriptions at the dais end. This site includes a detailed shot of one of the inscriptions, an easy piece of epigraphy to cut your teeth on.

[ 6/1/98: 1 page, 1 photo ]

Similarly, it's rather odd to be poking around in people's houses, kitchens, bathrooms. . . and as you might expect, Ostia has a number of latrines, large and small. This one is the famous one: a marble-seated public men's room near the Forum, still in pretty good condition. Others — yes, they're different — will eventually show up here too.

[ 1 page, 1 photo ]

A simple inscription to the health of an emperor near the Porta Romana.

Images with borders lead to more information.
The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)

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