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 p565  Via Ostiensis

Article on pp565‑566 of

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby):
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

Via Ostiensis (Not. app., which also mentions the via Campana and the via Laurentina): the road which led to Ostia, a distance of 14 miles (Fest. 250; Plin. Ep. II.17.2). The road from the porta Trigemina of the Servian wall, which is probably the original via Ostiensis, kept under the north-west and south-west sides of the Aventine (see Porticus  p566 Aemilia), and was joined by a branch from the porta Lavernalis and another from the porta Raudusculana, the latter (with which the Sepulcrum Cestii is orientated) falling into it a little beyond the tomb (BCr 1866, 34; 1898, 60‑76; Mon. L. I.511‑513; LF 44). A piece of its pavement was found in the ditch surrounding the old Protestant cemetery in 1824. After the intersection a road continued in the same direction (NS 1911, 42; BC 1915, 56); but the main road ran due south, and is followed by the modern road, which crosses the Almo by a bridge under which the ancient bridge is concealed (NS 1898, 450).

At the vicus Alexandri, 4 miles from Rome, a road to Lavinium diverged to the left (CIL XIV.4086, 4087; EE IX. p375; Mon. L. XIII.133‑196; Carcopino, Virgile et les Origines d'Ostie, 240‑250), which must be the via Laurentina (nova?) mentioned by Pliny (see Via Ardeatina).​1 An archaic milestone of the via Ostiensis was erected by the aediles (CIL I222 = VI.31585).

For administrative purposes the via Ostiensis and the via Campana, which was on the right bank of the Tiber and ran to the campus Salinarum romanarum (EE IX p337, No. 434; BC 1888, 86‑89; NS 1888, 228, 229), were both under a curator of equestrian rank (CIL VI.1610; X.1795; BC 1891, 130). See Jord. I.1.233, 368; T. IV.1‑153; BCr 1897, 283‑321; 1898, 60‑76; BC 1897, 56, 314.


The Authors' Note:

1 Ashby, The Roman Campagna in Classical Times, 209‑211.


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