Thursday 22 April

10 AM PDT
1 PM EDT
6 PM BST
7 PM CEST

With Dr. Eireann Marshall

In this virtual tour of Ostia, we will be exploring the neighbourhoods, apartment blocks, bakeries and bars which allowed the city to function on a daily basis. While the Vesuvian cities are famed for the exceptional state of preservation of their ruins, so much of Ostia is preserved that it is, in many ways, as well-preserved as Pompeii. With a city of 100,000 people, space became a premium, resulting in the vertical development of houses. The houses, as such, offer a wonderful contrast to Pompeii, where insulae, or apartment blocks, aren’t as common. We will also considering the dole which male citizens got, the role of the vigiles in keeping order, as well as the incredibly cosmopolitan nature of this, the port of Rome. Recent research suggests Ostia was far larger than previously thought.

In this lecture we will be exploring these new discoveries in order to get to the heart of what life was like in a busy Roman city.