Ancient World Review

The Roman Harbor Of Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica, not to be confused with the modern suburb of Ostia, is the name given to the archaeological site of the port city of ancient Rome.

"According to Livy Ostia was founded by Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome. In Latin ostium meant entrance, a reference to the location of the town at the mouth of the River Tiber. At the beginning it was just a castrum, a fortified settlement, which protected Rome from enemies attempting to attack the city by sailing up the river. Eventually the nature of Ostia changed and it became a commercial and cosmopolitan town where advanced forms of trading were developed." Source: Roman Art Lovers

Note: "The House of Apuleius was built in the republican period, as is indicated by a few remains of opus quasi reticulatum [a kind of brickwork]. The house was rebuilt in the Antonine period, after 148 AD (opus mixtum; dated brickstamps were found). It was excavated in 1885-1886 by Lanciani." Source: Ostia - Harbor City of Ancient Rome (photographs of the site and a floor plan of the house can be found here).

Ostia was sacked by pirates in 68 BC. "During the sack, the port was set on fire, the consular war fleet was destroyed, and two prominent senators were kidnapped," (Wikipedia). Pompey the Great took advantage of this disaster to get a new law passed, the Lex Gabinia, which gave him the authority to raise an army and clear the pirates from the Mediterranean once and for all. Pompey crushed the pirates in about a year, greatly increasing his fame, power and political influence.

In later years, Ostia was expanded to meet changing conditions and the demands of increased trade. According to A Guide To The Ancient World, by Michael Grant, "the [Ostia] harbor was too small to handle all the ships that now sought entry and the larger of them could not pass the sand bar at the river mouth," so the emperor Claudius [AD 41-54] "constructed a large artificial port two miles to its north, equipped with a towering lighthouse and linked to the Tiber by two canals." This new harbor turned out to be vulnerable to storms, so more modifications were made to solve the problem "and caused Ostia's activity and prosperity to reach its peak."

"In the following century," according to Grant, "emphasis shifted to the harbor quarter inaugurated by Claudius and Trajan [who expanded the work started by Claudius], which under Constantine I the Great (306-7) assumed an autonomous entity of its own under the name of Portus ... Meanwhile the city of Ostia itself had become much more a residential center than a trading town; the big apartment houses were allowed to go to ruin, but the construction of lavish new private houses went ahead."

The new harbor of Portus was sacked by the Visigoths in 408 AD.

Related: Roman Sea-borne Trading and the Port of Ostia

The Roman Way of Life and Death at Ostia, the Port of Rome

Medieval England Twice As Well Off As Today's Poorest Nations

The common picture of the Middle Ages as being a time of  grinding poverty, illiteracy and subsistence living when the peasants spent their lives digging up filth in the fields is all wrong:

"Medieval England was not only far more prosperous than previously believed, it also actually boasted an average income that would be more than double the average per capita income of the world’s poorest nations today." Source: Science Daily (2010).

"... [This] research provides the first annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain between 1700 and 1870. Far more data are available for the pre-1870 period than is widely realised. Britain after the Norman conquest (11th century) was a literate and numerate society that generated substantial written records, many of which have survived. As a result, the research was aided by a wide variety of records -- among them manorial records, tithes, farming records, and probate records."

Wars and outbreaks of disease disrupted the economy in certain places and times, just like they do today, but medieval Europe in general was much more prosperous than commonly believed:

 "Trade and commerce in the medieval world developed to such an extent that even relatively small communities had access to weekly markets and, perhaps a day’s travel away, larger but less frequent fairs, where the full range of consumer goods of the period was set out to tempt the shopper and small retailer. Markets and fairs were organised by large estate owners, town councils, and some churches and monasteries, who, granted a license to do so by their sovereign, hoped to gain revenue from stall holder fees and boost the local economy as shoppers used peripheral services. International trade had been present since Roman times but improvements in transportation and banking, as well as the economic development of northern Europe, caused a boom from the 9th century CE." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

The market as an institution dates back to the 8th century BC in Greece, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

Related: The Essence of Money - A Medieval Tale. (Short video on the "market money" used in medieval trade fairs.)

With an estimated per capita annual income of around $1000 (1990 dollars), medieval England was much better off than places like modern Zaire, Haiti, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, just to name a few of the countries listed for comparison purposes in this study:

According to the researchers, "Our work sheds new light on England's economic past, revealing that per capita incomes in medieval England were substantially higher than the 'bare bones subsistence' levels experienced by people living in poor countries in our modern world. The majority of the British population in medieval times could afford to consume what we call a 'respectability basket' of consumer goods that allowed for occasional luxuries. By the late Middle Ages, the English people were in a position to afford a varied diet including meat, dairy produce and ale, as well as the less highly processed grain products that comprised the bulk of the 'bare bones subsistence' diet."

Note how the Medieval Warm Period led to an economic boom. According to modern climate alarmists, global warming would be a disaster. The truth, of course, is just the opposite.

The Roman Empire had extensive trade networks with countries as far away as India and China. When the western empire collapsed in the fifth century AD, the disruption of trade and central government plunged Europe into the so-called Dark Ages, but Europe with its relentless industry gradually recovered and the re-establishment of trade on both the local and global levels led to a rise in general prosperity which in turn led to the Industrial Revolution. According to the researchers who conducted this 2010 study, "the Industrial Revolution did not come out of the blue. Rather, it was the culmination of a long period of economic development stretching back as far as the late medieval period."

Roman Industrial Site Unearthed In Northamptonshire

"Oxford Archaeology East recently completed a six-month excavation of a densely populated Late Romano-British industrial landscape in Northamptonshire, with the potential to illuminate often overlooked aspects of rural life during the Roman period in Britain." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"The industrial complex dates to between the late third to middle of the fourth century AD and is set within a Roman villa estate at Priors Hall Park, Corby. The date range is at the peak of the villa building tradition. The site gives a detailed picture of the people who lived and worked here during the final century of the Roman occupation, a time of economic and social turmoil within the empire."

Note: Finds include kilns and "evidence for numerous specialist tradespeople such as carpenters and builders, tile makers and mortar producers, perhaps being hired from nearby towns to make the pots, tiles, mortar and stone." One of the most interesting discoveries was "a coin of the rebel emperor Allectus, who reigned a small breakaway empire based in Britain in AD 293 – 96."

The Blue Monkey Frescoes Of Prehistoric Akrotiri

Blue-monkey frescoes shown at 1:08.

"The blue monkeys painted on the walls of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini are among many animals found in the frescoes of this 3,600-year-old city. Historians have studied the murals for decades since they were unearthed in the 1960s and 1970s on the island, which was once known as Thera. But when we and a team of other primatologists recently examined the paintings, we realized the monkeys could provide a clue that the Bronze Age world was much more globalized than previously thought." Source: Phys.org (1/16/20).

"Archaeologists had assumed the monkeys were an African species, with which the Aegean people that built Akrotiri probably came into contact via trade links with Egypt. But we think the paintings actually depict Hanuman langurs, a species from the Indian subcontinent. This suggests the Aegean people, who came from Crete and the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea, may have had trade routes that reached over 2,500 miles."

The prehistoric town of Akrotiri, Greece.

Note: "Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3500–1100 B.C.) wall paintings from the islands of Crete and Thera depict monkeys in a variety of roles such as running wild in nature, possibly following (trained) commands, and participating in sacred activities. These images, while stylistically Aegean, are traditionally considered closely related to—and descendant from—Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Mesopotamian monkey imagery. While monkey depictions in the latter regions may provide species-specific characteristics, Aegean wall paintings typically lack this level of detail." Source: A new identification of the monkeys depicted in a Bronze Age wall painting from Akrotiri, Thera.

Ancient Nubia, Egypt's Rival In Africa

Dating back to at least 2,000 BC, the history of Nubia is confusing because several ancient kingdoms rose and fell in this part of Africa and the term "Nubia" is sometimes used to refer to one or more of these early kingdoms while at other times it just refers to the region as a whole. Complicating matters even more, the ancient Egyptians referred to their Nubian neighbors as Kushites, a kingdom in Nubia, and some sources use the term "Kush" to refer to the entire area.

The Nubian people were apparently descendants of the "the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century [BC] following the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë," a city located on the east bank of the Nile, (Wikipedia).

The most well-known civilization of the Nubians was the previously mentioned Kingdom of Kush, which came into existence after the Bronze Age collapse (~1200 - 1150 BC) and fall of the Egyptian New Kingdom (~11th century BC). This is another source of confusion -- for me -- because at least one source I've found says that the Nubians didn't take over the region until after the fall of the Kingdom of Kush. Most of the sources, however, say that it was a Nubian kingdom, so I'll leave it at that.

Egypt had a complex and volatile relationship with Nubia. During the Early Dynastic Period (c3100 - 2686? BC), Egypt traded with Nubia, but "none of these trading expeditions, it seems, was aggressive in character, though the Egyptians occasionally had cause to protect themselves against the local populations," according to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations. During the Old Kingdom (c2613 - 2160 BC), Egyptian expeditions "were regularly sent through Nubia to obtain exotic products such as incense, ivory and panther skins. These expeditions were not without incident." (Ibid)

This trade between Egypt and Nubia continued for millennia. Wars sometimes broke out and traders were sometimes killed, apparently by local tribes, during these trade expeditions, but "relations between the two peoples also show peaceful cultural interchange and cooperation, including mixed marriages," (Wikipedia). Egypt's southern borders shifted back and forth as Egyptian power waxed and waned, and over time it appears that the two populations became thoroughly mixed.

The history of the relationship between Egypt and Nubia is long and complex, with Egypt conquering Nubia several times and Nubia conquering Egypt around 760 BC. After they defeated their northern neighbor, the Nubians established the short-lived 25th Dynasty - sometimes referred to as the Nubian Dynasty or the Kushite Empire. The Black Pharoahs didn't last very long, however. They were conquered by the Assyrians around 656 BC.

Documentary from 2015.

The Roman Grain Trade

This entire lecture series should play automatically, but if it doesn't, the rest of the series can be found here.

"For all of the glory and grandeur of Ancient Rome, the Roman economy never developed into anything terribly complex compared to modern economies. Ancient Rome was an agrarian and slave based economy whose main concern was feeding the vast number of citizens and legionaries who populated the Mediterranean region. Agriculture and trade dominated Roman economic fortunes, only supplemented by small scale industrial production." Source: "Ancient Roman Economy," United Nations of Roma Victrix.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, "The growth of Rome to a city of perhaps 250,000 in the time of the Gracchi and of up to one million under Augustus, far outstripping the productive capacity of her hinterlands, created an unprecedented demand for imported foodstuffs." The regular distribution of "a set monthly ration of grain at a set price for adult male citizen residents" was established by the populari Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, later assassinated for his reforms, and the ration was made free by P. Clodius Pulcher in 58 BC.

The Gracchi brothers were representatives of the lower class who attempted to make reforms benefiting the common people. Both were murdered by the ruling aristocracy for (among other things) their land reforms which would have had a major impact on the patrician's power and incomes. This conflict between the commoners and the rapacious nobility still continues to this day.

The emperor Augustus stabilized the number of residents entitled to the grain dole "at or below 200,000" in 2 BC. "[The] public supply, drawing on the grain paid to the state as rent or tax in Sicily, Africa and (from 30 BC) Egypt, helped the privileged minority who held tickets of entitlement, which could be inherited or sold. But the monthly ration did not meet a family's need for grain, and the tickets did not necessarily go to the poor." (OCD)

"Grain made into bread was, by far, the most important element in the Roman diet." (Wikipedia) In later years the grain dole, known as the Cura Annonae, and the construction of the new Colosseum led to the development of the "bread and circuses" system for controlling (or trying to control) the population of Rome, making the grain supply of Egypt critical to the survival of the city.

Even the state couldn't meet the huge demand for grain in a city the size of Rome, however, and this created all sorts of problems. "State grain met no more than a portion of the city's annual grain needs," according to the OCD.  "The rest had to be supplied by the free market. Furthermore, the importation of the state grain depended upon private traders, who in times of crisis had to be offered considerable incentives to involve themselves in the trade."

The grain supply of Egypt was so crucial that the Roman emperors made sure to keep the country under tight control:

"As a key province, but also the 'crown domain' where the emperors succeeded the divine Pharaohs, Egypt was ruled by a uniquely styled Praefectus augustalis ('Augustal prefect'), instead of the traditional senatorial governor of other Roman provinces. The prefect was a man of equestrian rank and was appointed by the Emperor." (Wikipedia)

If the wrong man was appointed to govern Egypt, he could easily pressure Rome into meeting his demands. I don't think it ever happened in reality, but this scenario was portrayed in HBO's Rome where Marc Antony withholds the grain supply in order to force Octavian into declaring war.

The Isle Of The Dragon's Blood Trees

"Socotra Archipelago, in the northwest Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden, is 250 km long and comprises four islands and two rocky islets which appear as a prolongation of the Horn of Africa. The site is of universal importance because of its biodiversity with rich and distinct flora and fauna..." Source: UNESCO.

Socotra was called Dioskouridou ('of the Dioscurides') or Dioscorida in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a first century AD shipping manual. According to the author of the Periplus, "Dioscorida ... is very large but desert and marshy, having rivers in it and crocodiles and many snakes and great lizards, of which the flesh is eaten and the fat melted and used instead of olive oil." Source: Fordham University Internet History Sourcebooks (paragraph 30).

Note: I'm not sure about this, but I think the Erythraean Sea is the old name for the Red Sea and at least part (?) of the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean. A map of the Erythraean Sea drawn in 169 BC by the Greek historian and geographer Agatharchides of Cnidus, can be found here. Socotra (lower right at the bottom of the map) was ideally located to be a jumping-off point for voyages to India.

Socotra has been called "the world's strangest place" with good reason. The plants on Socotra are truly bizarre, as can be seen in these pictures. The island's spectacular and alien landscape looks like something out of a science-fiction movie.

The ancient history of Socotra is obscure, but its inhabitants traded spices and the sap of their Dragon's Blood trees to Egypt and Rome. Its location near the mouth of the Red Sea made it an important stopover for cargo ships involved in the thriving maritime trade with the far east.

"The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all tapped the treasures of Socotra’s natural world: aromatic resins such as frankincense, medicinal aloe extract, and the dark red sap of the dragon’s blood tree, used for healing and as an artist’s color. Adventurers came to harvest the island’s wealth, despite stories that it was guarded by giant snakes living in its caves. The Queen of Sheba, Alexander the Great, and Marco Polo were among those who coveted Socotra’s riches." Source: National Geographic.

"The value of incense and dragon’s blood peaked during the time of the Roman Empire. Afterward, the island served mostly as a way station for traders, passing centuries in relative cultural isolation. Socotra’s residents lived generation after generation as their ancestors had: the mountain Bedouin minding their goats, the coastal residents fishing, and everyone harvesting dates. Island history was passed down through poetry, recited in the Socotri language."

According to Socotra Eco-Tours, Aristotle, Alexander the Great's tutor, selected a group of colonists to settle on Socotra. The idea was to harvest its myrhh, valued for its medicinal properties, and turn the island into a base for Alexander's invasion of India. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st cent BC) mentions Socotra as a major source of myrhh, labdanum (a kind of resin) and various aromatic plants. The island was an important way station where "[s]ailors and tradesmen not only bought precious resins and medical herbs...which they later on sold at markets in the Roman empire or the Indian kingdoms, but also gained strength and supplies necessary for their long journeys to the African coast, Madagascar or to Persia." Inscriptions in various languages have been found inside Hoq cave on the island. (See video below)

Considering the island's strategic location and valuable resources, I imagine it was fought over repeatedly by various empires in the ancient world. Most of this history, unfortunately, has been lost forever. 

Note: "In 1834, the East India Company, in the expectation that the Mahra sultan of Qishn and Socotra, who resided at Qishn on the mainland [southern coast of modern Yemen], would accept an offer to sell the island, stationed a garrison on Socotra. Faced with the unexpected firm refusal of the sultan to sell, however, as well as the lack of good anchorages for a coaling station to be used by the new steamship line being put into service on the Suez-Bombay route, the British left in 1835." (Wikipedia)

Pictish "Power Center" Discovered In Scotland

"A hilltop fort at King's Seat Hillfort, a legally protected site near Dunkeld [Scotland], was an important Pictish power centre, say archaeologists who found evidence of metal and textile production at the site." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"Finds such as glass beads and pottery suggested the Picts who occupied the site in the 7th to 9th centuries had trade links with continental Europe. Other finds included pieces of Roman glass that were recycled and reused as gaming pieces.

"""In a new report on last year's excavations, archaeologists said the wealth of finds suggested the site had been a stronghold of the elite in the local population, with 'influence over the trade and production of high-status goods'."

More on the Picts can be found here.

The Medieval Cog

"A cog is a type of ship that first appeared in the 10th century, and was widely used from around the 12th century on. Cogs were clinker-built, generally of oak, which was an abundant timber in the Baltic region of Prussia. This vessel was fitted with a single mast and a square-rigged single sail. These vessels were mostly associated with seagoing trade in medieval Europe, especially the Hanseatic League [next video], particularly in the Baltic Sea region. They ranged from about 15 to 25 meters (49 to 82 ft) in length with a beam of 5 to 8 meters (16 to 26 ft), and the largest cog ships could carry up to about 200 tons." (Wikipedia)

"The most famous cog still in existence today is the Bremen cog, depicted at the left. It dates from the 1380s and was found in 1962; until then, cogs had only been known from medieval documents and seals." (Wikipedia)

The cog evolved from a long line of earlier ship designs. According to the Naval Encyclopedia, "The Clinker was another name for the Cog (In French and English), Kogghe (in Batavian), Koggen (in German) or 'Coque', from the Spanish Coca or Cocha, or Concha in Latin, Coccha in Venetian. This was typical of the versatile cargo ships of northern Europe between the early Middle Ages and the era of great discoveries, although this type later coincided with the nava, more typical of the Lateen-rigged cargo ships. The clinker kogge was the first and most emblematic of these northern ships."

The 2016 report below describes the discovery of the shipwreck of a medieval cog in a Dutch port.

This type of ship is sometimes referred to as a Hanse or Hanseatic cog since it was used by the Hanseatic League:

"Merchants often also gathered in groups called Hanse for trading across the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. They only dared go to sea in convoys with their valuable freight." Source: Statdebund Die Hanse (Council of Europe).

"The Hanse used a ship called the cog for sea transport. It was a bulky freighter with one mast and a square sail. A helm at the stern and a flat floor made it possible to ship in low water. Unlike the Nordic longboats they were more economical to use. A cog could transport a relatively large amount of cargo with just a small crew, up to 90 tons ... It was produced relatively quickly and inexpensively at that time."

The cog's flat bottom allowed these ships to travel up rivers, but also made them unstable in bad weather. This vulnerability had a direct impact on the merchant's accounting practices, particularly in regard to insurance.

Closed captions help a little.

Related: How did medieval shipwrights turn trees into boat parts?

Fitting planks on a clinker vessel (small boats) Part One. Part Two here.

Ancient Grains Redate Trans-Eurasian Crop Exchange

"Most people are familiar with the historical Silk Road, but fewer people realize that the exchange of items, ideas, technology, and human genes through the mountain valleys of Central Asia started almost three millennia before organized trade networks formed. These pre-Silk Road exchange routes played an important role in shaping human cultural developments across Europe and Asia, and facilitated the dispersal of technologies such as horse breeding and metal smelting into East Asia." Source: Science Daily.

Note: The Silk Road network linking east and west dates back to the 2nd century BC, but this latest discovery shows that trade was taking place in Asia for thousands of years before that:

"This new study, led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, provides details of recently recovered ancient grains from the far northern regions of Inner Asia. Radiocarbon dating shows that the grains include the oldest examples of wheat and barley ever recovered this far north in Asia, pushing back the dates for early farming in the region by at least a millennium."