Dominating the city stood the great Temple of Vulcan, dedicated to the patron god of the city. From the Venus dock we walked to the city Forum, where two fine bronze statues of the Dioscuri stood, patrons of Ostia as they were of Rome. Indeed, Ostia was a more attractive city than Rome, far smaller and less crowded. The streets were broader and most of the public buildings were newer, many of them faced with gleaming white marble. The other buildings were constructed for the most part of brick. The Ostians eschewed plaster and whitewash, delighting in intricate and attractive brickwork.
“It’s getting late,” Milo told me, “but we can get a few questions answered. Come on, let’s go to the theater.” From the Forum we took a broad street that led to the building in question. It seemed like an odd destination for men on our mission, but he was the guide.
The theater was an imposing structure, constructed of marble-faced stone, semicircular in the Greek fashion. Rome at that time had no permanent theaters, having to rely on extremely flammable wooden buildings where the Senate met from time to time in hot weather.
As it turned out, all the guilds, fraternities and corporations concerned with sea commerce had their offices beneath the three-tiered colonnade of the theater. It was an admirable use of a public space, centralizing the organizations, each of which paid a contribution for the upkeep of the building. As we walked beneath the arches, I admired the mosaic pavement of the curving walk that ran around the building. Before each office, the mosaic depicted the activity of the fraternity within. There were crossed oars for the rowers’ guild, amphorae for the wine importers, sails for the sailmakers and so forth. One mosaic depicted a naked man in the act of swimming. I asked Milo about this one.
“Urinatores,” he said, “salvage divers. They’re a very important guild here. Storms and accidents sink ships here every year. There’s always lots of salvage and channel-clearing to be done. Their work is necessary and quite dangerous, so they’re respected men.”
“I should imagine,” I said. Only fourteen miles away, and yet so different from Rome that the two cities might have been at opposite ends of the sea. “Where are we going?”
“Here.” He stood on a mosaic depicting the three Fates at their loom: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
“This needs some interpretation,” I told him. “Surely Ostia doesn’t receive cargoes of fate.”
Milo threw back his head and laughed. He laughed better than any man I ever knew except Marcus Antonius, the triumvir. “No, this is the headquarters of the cloth importers’ guild.”
We went inside and a clerk looked up from his desk, where he was tying up a bundle of scrolls, no doubt looking forward to his dinner. “I was just closing the office. Please come back tomorrow. … Oh, hello, Milo.”
"Good afternoon, Silius. We won’t keep you long. This is Decius Caecilius Metellus, of the Commission of Twenty-Six in Rome.”
“Afternoon, sir,” he said without awe. He knew perfectly well that I had no authority here.
“We just needed to know if Hasdrubal’s still about, and where he’s doing business these days.”
“Oh, is that all? He has a new place, just inland of the Juno dock, between the merchant of used amphorae and the rope loft.”
“I know the place. He’s still in the old business, isn’t he?”
“You mean …” Silius made a throat-cutting gesture. Milo nodded. “Yes, he’s still their Ostia agent.”
“Good. Thank you, Silius. Come on, sir.” I followed him from the theater. I could have gone to the quaestor’s residence to ask for a place to stay the night, but I didn’t feel like socializing with someone I didn’t know, and making a lot of explanations as to why I was here, so I asked Milo if there was an inn where we could stay.
“I know just the place,” he said. Soon we were walking into the precincts of a large temple. Well, in a city where the businesses had their offices in a theater, why not an inn at a temple? Instead of going into the handsome, columned temple, we went down some steps that led us to a tremendous underground crypt where hundreds of men and women sat at long tables. I had never seen anything like this. Rome is a city of small wineshops and modest taverns. Not Ostia. There were four or five large fireplaces supplying light and warmth, and serving-girls hustled among the tables bearing trays of food and pitchers of wine.
Greetings were called out to Milo as we passed among the tables looking for a place to sit. I could hear a dozen languages being spoken, and could see the peculiar tunics and headgear of as many guilds, each congregating at its special table. At one I could see men with palms like Milo’s; at another sat a number of sleek, huge-chested men, who I decided had to be divers.