14 Giugno, 2011. Ostia Antica.

So today we visited the site of Rome’s seaport, Ostia. That is, it used to be a seaport; now it’s an archaeological site and open-air museum. The word “ostia” means “mouth,” which is appropriate, because Ostia used to be located at the mouth of the Tiber. In fact, there is a plain where the riverbed once was, covered in tall grass. Over time the river changed its course, and eventually Ostia was abandoned.

The site is home to many beautiful mosaics, and the remaining structures, which are in relatively good shape (considering they’re about a thousand years old) give a great sense of the layout of the city. We passed rows and rows of storefronts, homes, and warehouses, with the occasional public bath and mithraeum (shrines where the Cult of Mithra worshipped; eighteen of them were found around the town) popping up. There was also an amphitheater, which was fully intact, and had great acoustics. We even met some of the current denizens of the ruins; some vibrantly-colored lizards and a very friendly cat, who followed us from the baths of Neptune, where we found him (her?), to the amphitheater and was even nice enough to pose for some pictures with us.

After a while of trekking around the ruins, some of the group opted to leave to go back to Rome. I probably should have joined them. Instead, I decided to visit the ruins of the oldest synagogue ever discovered in Europe, along with most of the rest of the group. Sounds exciting, right? That’s what I thought, too. I was mistaken. I assumed (wrongly) that the walk to the synagogue would be a short one, and certainly couldn’t be any farther than the distance we had already traveled. Turns out, it was located in the farthest corner of the Ostia area, a distance that seemed at least double that of the first part of our trek, which wasn’t really that bad, but it was hot and the street was paved with boulders. I think the combination of a lack of even ground to walk upon and the midday sun beating down on me made things way less tolerable than they could have been, but I persevered (mostly because I didn’t have any better ideas), and we eventually made it to the synagogue.

Or rather, we arrived at the ruins of what may have once been a synagogue. It was difficult to tell exactly how it was ever decided that this particular pile of bricks was any more synagogue-y than any of the other piles of bricks that we had passed to get there. There were no visible markings or structures that looked Jewish, only an inexplicable lamppost in the center of the structure and a completely incongruous modern art installation that reminded me of an Atari game. The artist’s name was Weinstein or something similar; I don’t really recall, but what stuck with me was the fact that the name was the only vaguely Jewish thing about the place. I have to assume that the archaeologists who discovered the site had good reason for deciding it was a synagogue, but whatever artifacts or markings that tipped them off they must have taken with them.

Had I any more energy, I would have been upset at this disappointment; I had none, so I trudged on back to the station to catch the train with the rest of the group. All in all, I’m glad I went, as I got some great photos and even better exercise, but my entire body decided to spend the next several days punishing me for it. The day when transplanting your brain into a robot body becomes a reality cannot come soon enough.