Porto Traiano

Latitude:  41°46'34.15"N
Longitude:  12°15'38.77"E
elev 40 ft.

The journey to Porto Traiano was my first attempt to find an ancient Roman Road.  Throughout all of my research, it often felt that I was on the verge of an original discovery, though I would soon discover that, generally, volumes of research had been done on the exact things I was studying.

While still working out of my studio in Vermont, I started to locate the important Roman Roads that connected Rome to the original ports Porto Claudio and Ostia Antica.  Having located both the ancient and the modern Via Portuensis on several maps, I decided this would be a good road to explore, hoping to find the intersection of the ancient road and the new road.  

While studying the two maps below, I noticed the hexagonal lake near the coast.  This appeared on every ancient map that I found, often varying distances from the shore line.

Source: http://www.ostia-antica.org/intro.htm

Source: http://www.ostia-antica.org/intro.htm

I opened up Google Earth and zeroed in on the location.  The same hexagonal lake still existed, though now several hundred meters from Fumicino Airport.  In a fury I started searching for information and images of what turned out to be the very important and grand port, Porto Traiano.

I found the photograph below, that showed both the perfection of the shore line and evidence of a current excavation that was underway.

Virutal Globe Trotting has a wonderful view of the current site that allows you to zoom and pan with great clarity.

Below is a quote from the Wikipedia site that describes both the Porto Claudio and the Porto Traiano, as well as the Via Portuensis.

Rome's original harbour was Ostia. Claudius constructed the first harbour on the Portus site, 4 km (2.5 mi) north of Ostia, enclosing an area of 69 hectares (170 acres), with two long curving moles projecting into the sea, and an artificial island, bearing a lighthouse, in the centre of the space between them. The foundation of this lighthouse was provided by filling one of the massive Obelisk ships, used to transport an obelisk from Egypt to adorn the spina of Vatican Circus, built during the reign of Caligula. The harbour thus opened directly to the sea on the north-west and communicated with the Tiber by a channel on the south-east. The object was to obtain protection from the prevalent south-west wind, to which the river mouth was exposed. Though Claudius, in the inscription which he caused to be erected in A.D. 46, boasted that he had freed the city of Rome from the danger of inundation, his work was only partially successful: in 62 AD Tacitus speaks of a number of grain ships sinking within the harbour during a violent storm. Nero gave the harbour the name of "Portus Augusti".

It was probably Claudius who constructed the new direct road from Rome to Portus, the Via Portuensis which was 24 km (15 mi) long. The Via Portuensis ran over the hills as far as the modern Ponte Galeria, and then straight across the plain. An older road, the Via Campana, ran along the foot of the hills, following the right bank of the Tiber, and passing the grove of the Arval Brothers at the sixth mile, to the Campus salinarum romanarum, the saltmarsh on the right bank from which it derived its name.
 
In 103 AD Trajan constructed another harbour farther inland—a hexagonal basin enclosing an area of 39 hectares (97 acres), and communicating by canals with the harbour of Claudius, with the Tiber direct, and with the sea, the last now forming the navigable arm of the Tiber (reopened for traffic by Gregory XIII and again by Paul V). It bore the name Fossa trajana, though its origin is undoubtedly due to Claudius. The basin itself is still preserved, and is now a reedy lagoon. It was surrounded by extensive warehouses, remains of which may still be seen: the fineness of the brickwork of which they are built is remarkable.^{[citation needed]}

"Portus" was the main port of ancient Rome for more than 500 years and provided a conduit for everything from glass, ceramics, marble and slaves to wild animals caught in Africa and shipped to Rome for spectacles in the Colosseum."^[2]

I was so captivated by this massive Roman undertaking, that I decided well before arriving in Italy, that I had to not only see it in person, but set foot on the Via Portuensis as close to it's origin as possible.

Source: http://www.webalice.it/pettirossi/page/Organizzazione.htm

Source: http://roma.corriere.it/roma/notizie/cronaca/11_febbraio_6/porto-traiano-problemi-gestione-fulloni-181409037787.shtml

The images, maps, digital models and reconstructions of the Porto go on and on.  I'm not sure of the original source of many of these as they are often used as advertisements for travel agencies.

Source: http://www.heritagedaily.com/2011/09/roman-imperial-shipyard-discovered/portusaa1/

The image below was the most accurate overhead view that I could use to overlay on a satellite image in an effort to find the exact location of the beginning of the Via Portuensis.

Source: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/3518725900/

The Via Portuensis leaves the site in the center right of the photo below where the curved road meets the straight road.  At his point I felt pretty sure that I could stand directly on that intersection.  The new road lies exactly on top of the ancient one.

I was accepted for a 2 week visiting artist residency at the American Academy of Rome, which gave me ample time in Rome to get to this site.  What I initially thought was going to be quite simple, turned out to be extremely complex.  Most of the scholars that I met with believed that the Traiano site was owned privately by the Torlonia family and that access by the public was forbidden.  I tried everything I could think of to access the site. After exhausting the most obvious sources, such as contacting the Torlonia family directly. I decided to go to the Torlonia Museum and see If I could leverage someone there (incidentally, Brooke Shields is a descendant of this royalty and  I actually considered trying to contact her and see if she could help).

Finally, I befriended several museum guards, who made some calls for me and discovered that the Il Museo delle Navi Romane di Fiumicino, at the Fumicino Airport, offers tours of the excavation 2 days a month.  Eventually I learned that the tour was in Italian and you needed a car to participate.  Getting to this museum by train would have required taking the metro to the airport and walking across the runway to the museum.  Two very kind librarians in the American Academy photo archive dug a little further for me and discovered that a nature tour was available 1 day a month at Oasis di Porto.

Getting to this site was crazy.  The Rome Metro will take you to a stop called Parco Leonardo.  This is the last stop before the airport. If you take the subway to the airport it costs 8 euro, but if you get off at this stop it only costs 1.60 euro.  There is a bus that runs from Parco Leonardo to the town of Fumicino and there is a stop directly across the street from the excavation called the "Cemeteria", or a least tell the bus driver you want to get off at the cemetery.   If you can't get a bus the walk to the site is 2 kilometers along a busy road with no shoulder.  I studied the Google earth images below  to try to get an idea of what I was in for.  Most of the area looked both industrial and agricultural.

2

1

 I decided to take a test trip, before including Janet, my wife, the following day.  From what I could tell from the satellite images, I expected to find an oil refinery when I arrived at Parco Leonardo.  It turned out that this was an enormous shopping mall.  I tried to walk to Porto Traiano along the new Via Portuensis, but is was pouring rain and clearly not safe.

4

3

So the following day, a Sunday, we retraced my steps and easily arrived at Parco Leonardo.  We waited briefly at the bus stop.  We noticed a cab so we splurged and paid an outrageous fare to go 2 kilometers to the site.  We were greeted by a very nice Italian gentleman who seemed to enjoy my miming of the Italian language.

We were transported to the lake by horse and carriage (rest assured, these horses are well cared for).  They are very careful about controlling where visitors walk, primarily in an effort to protect the nature preserve, though I asked about vipers and they have been located in the surrounding area, so I would guess they want to keep fatalities to a minimum.

Substantial barriers protect the private property from intruders.  Note the straight shoreline and hexagonal corner in the background beyond the fence.

The excavation of the warehouses, baths, dwellings and shops can be seen through a fence.  To visit these sites you need to take the archeological tour through the Nautical Museum.

But its pretty clear throughout the tour that you are always walking on top of a substantial ruin.

During the dark ages the Port as well as the surrounding area filled in with silt from the Tiber and became swampy.  Malaria was a serious problem.  In the late 1800's the Torlonia family drained the lake and restored the shoreline, helping to eradicate the problem.

The amount of growth that has filled in the shoreline in the last 100 years is remarkable.

When we left Porto Traiano I had expected to cross the street and catch a bus back to Parco Leonardo where we would catch a train back to Rome.  I thought I had interpreted the bus schedules accurately, and the gentlemen at the gate confirmed that there was a bus back to the train.  We waited for a bus for 2 hours.  Finally we returned to to site and were told that the bus didn't run on Sundays and that there was no way to call for a cab. Stranded.  Eventually they took pity on us, and the tour guide, who we had befriended during the trip gave us a ride back to the train.  I was never able to walk on the intersection of the Via Portuensis that I originally had set as my target destination.  As we sped past it in the the car, I snapped the picture below.  That was as close as I got.

Directions


View Porto Traiano in a larger map