Congratulations to Christer Bruun on the publication of his major new study of Ostia-by-the Sea, now available from Oxford University Press!
Ostia, the Roman settlement founded at the mouth of the river Tiber, was the port of the imperial capital and one of the most important urban centers in the Mediterranean world during the last decades of the Roman Republic and the Early and High Empires. The town's role as a maritime mercantile hub explains why, in its heyday, it was Italy's largest town after the mighty Rome. Ostia is still important today, but now because of the impressive remains of its buildings, inscriptions, and even more numerous archaeological objects and what they can tell us about the people who lived there, or merely visited, or those whose ships anchored in one of Ostia's harbors.