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Updated: June 9, 2025
Valeria, wife of Calatinus, and Pratinas, the "charming" Epicurean philosopher, had both fled Rome two days before, and rumour had it that they had embarked together at Ostia on a ship leaving direct for Egypt. Of course Calatinus was receiving all the sympathy, and was a much abused man; and so the tongues ran on.
With great difficulty he completed a canal three miles in length, partly by cutting through, and partly by tunnelling, a mountain; thirty thousand men being constantly employed in the work for eleven years . He formed the harbour at Ostia, by carrying out circular piers on the right and on the left, with a mole protecting, in deep water, the entrance of the port . To secure the foundation of this mole, he sunk the vessel in which the great obelisk had been brought from Egypt ; and built upon piles a very lofty tower, in imitation of the Pharos at Alexandria, on which lights were burnt to direct mariners in the night.
In the mean time Messalina and Silius, wholly unconscious of the danger, gave themselves up with greater and greater boldness and unconcern to their guilty pleasures. On the day when Callistus and his party went to Ostia she was celebrating a festival at her palace with great gayety and splendor. It was in the autumn of the year, and the festival was in honor of the season.
Istius autem ostia aulae, dum in ea residet, aut deambulat Imperator, multi Barones ingressum seruant intente, et ne limen tangatur, quod hoc haberent pro augurio, et bene verberaretur, quia Imperatore praesente, nemo nisi adductus in quacunque camera, vel habitatione intromittitur, donec interrogatus iusserit Imperator.
Certainly the shows of the Amphitheatre seemed remote enough here under the cool, grey branches, tipped with early green, of the Attic beech tree, but scarcely, after all, more remote than they often seemed in Rome itself to a youth who found virile recreation by the sea at Ostia or in following the Anio over the hills of Tibur.
Rome, with its leviathan aqueducts, its seething tenements clinging to the hills, its cruel, shining Palatine, must have overborne the provincial traveller coming up from Ostia. And Honora, as she stood on the deck of the ferry-boat, approaching New York for the second time in her life, could not overcome a sense of oppression.
The circumstance that Mago did not land at Ostia is to be explained not by any such foresight, but simply by the fact that Latium was not at all threatened by Pyrrhus and so did not need Carthaginian aid; and the Carthaginians certainly fought for Rome in front of Rhegium. II. IV. Victories of Salamis and Himera, and Their Effects II. IV. Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory
The capital still possessed no other bridge over the Tiber than the primitive wooden gangway, which led over the Tiber island to the Janiculum; the Tiber was still allowed to lay the streets every year under water, and to demolish houses and in fact not unfrequently whole districts, without anything being done to strengthen the banks; mighty as was the growth of transmarine commerce, the roadstead of Ostia already by nature bad was allowed to become more and more sanded up.
Only after the arrival of Tigellinus were proper orders sent to Ostia; but meanwhile the people had grown more threatening. Besides flour, as much baked bread as possible was brought at his command, not only from Ostia, but from all towns and neighboring villages.
From Ostia, situated at the mouth of the Tiber, only sixteen miles from the capital, a favourable wind frequently carried vessels in seven days to the straits of Gibraltar, and in nine or ten to Alexandria, in Egypt.
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