In Pursuit of Pliny the Elder: The Port Of Ostia
The modern port city of Citavecchia is far different from the ancient Roman port of Ostia, which is much closer to the city of Rome. On his trips around the Roman World by sea Pliny the Elder would have come to Ostia often. Ostia is an often neglected site among tourists but apparently you can get as good an idea about life in ancient Rome at Ostia as you can in either Rome or the more famous ancient city of Pompeii. Why? No one else goes there! And crowds are prohibitive. It might be easier to imagine the author of the Natural History sailing off here than in more southern ports. He probably left from here to sail off to his governorship in Trier, the administrative center for the province of Germania, or Germany. So you can look for a special scene where Pliny the Elder and his entourage disembark in Ostia to keep their dinner date with the Emperor Tiberius before heading off to his villa along the coast near Herculaneum and Pompeii, which gives it name to the Cheops Books, LLC historical thriller, the Vesuvius Plot.
