Ostia

Related Category: Ancient History, Rome

(ŏs´tēə), ancient city of Italy, at the mouth of the Tiber. It was founded (4th cent. B.C.) as a protection for Rome, then developed (from the 1st cent. B.C.) as a Roman port, rivaling Puteoli. Augustus, Claudius I, Trajan, and Hadrian expanded the city and harbor. From the 3d cent. A.D. the city began to decline. The ruins, of great archaeological interest, rival those of Pompeii in showing the layout of an ancient Italian city. In the late 1980s it served as a refugee camp for processing Jewish émigrés from the Soviet Union.