OCR Text |
Show REJUVENATE DSTIft Interesting Old Town Has Produced Many Relics of Former Grandeur. Special Cable to The Tribune. ROME, May 2. While agitation is going on for the construction of a great seaport at Ostia, interesting discoveries aro being made on this site, which is at the mouth of tho Tiber a few miles from Eomo. Liko other classic remains, in tHc middle ages Ostia becamo a stono auar-n' auar-n' and limekiln for tho buildera ot" tho time, somo of its fragments being found as far away as the magnificent thirteenth thir-teenth century Cathedral of Orvioto and at Pisa, while it largely contributed to St. Peter's San Giavanni in Laterano. XJnliko Pompeii, which was a place of luxury and amusement, few villa residences resi-dences havo up to the present been discovered dis-covered at Ostia, but most oi' tho houses woro such as would have boon inhabited by business people. The lines of the city aro American in their straightness aud regularity. Thero aro traces of fivo or six bathing bath-ing establishments in Ostia. Two chief baths, whic. are to the north of the street called the Via dei Vigili, with their large Palaestra or place for exercise, exer-cise, take up a whole block; and there are to bo found splendid mosaics of tho second century that represent Neptune driving four 'water horses, being perhaps per-haps the finest ono of tho kind known. Eveu the room which is supposed to have been tho porter's lodge has a mosaic pavement in. an Egyptian do-sign. do-sign. xs7car tho baths to tho north are the barracks of the vigiles under tho site of which tlioro were evidently formerly other baths with earlier mosaic Uoor6. The vigilos or firomon woro a branch of those in Rome, and were specially needed at Ostia, whore so much grain was brought for the suppl' of the capital. cap-ital. Ouo of the most beautiful parts of old Ostia is Iho theator, with a garden soaco behind it which Professor Vag-liori Vag-liori restored according to iho directions direc-tions of Vitruvius, planting it with tho trees and flowers which must have grown thcro in old days. Many of the columns arc in placer This was evidently evi-dently tho commercial center of tho town, and near by aro tho small rooms which woro the offices of the various corporations. Tho tanners, the boatmen, boat-men, tho weighers of grain aud many otherB had their place for conducting business thoro, and tho figures represent repre-sent od in tho mosaics oi the floors prove, what places, such as Spain, Egypt and Tripoli, Ostia traded. A Bchomo has now boon evolved to create again near Ostia tho greatest harbor har-bor of central Italy, connecting it with Romo by the Tiber and b.v electric railways, rail-ways, which would lead to the redemption redemp-tion of the region lying between tho capital and the Tyrrhene sea, making a seaside suburb which would bo on a largor sealo tuan what. Schoveningcn is to The -Hague. |