Isola Sacra Introduction

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"This is a place free of fear!"

This Greek text was placed in front of the entrance of one of the tombs on the ancient Roman burial place. The text forms part of a mosaic on which we can see two sailing vessels entering the harbour of Portus. For the "inhabitants" of this necropolis, the text had a double meaning. The vessels were brought into a place outside the reach of the dangerous sea and, similarly, the deceased had, by taking his last boat trip over the river Styx¹, changed his worldly vale of tears into the eternal peace of the underworld. For me, as the author of this section of the website, there is a third sense.

As so many others I'm very interested in people, their behaviour, thoughts and feelings. People not as a group, but as individuals. Each person feels himself standing in the centre of his own existence. For him or her everything is related to his own ego. Questions like 'who am I', 'where do I come from' and 'where am I going to' are quickly put. Questions which are not easy to answer and often give you a certain fear for the unknown. We have to realise, however, that in this we are not standing alone. Many have proceeded us and many will follow.
We all know the stories about kings, emperors and famous people. The story of the little man, on the contrary, the man on the street with his daily problems, is hardly known. And precisely they are standing closest to us.
In 1964 I accidentally discovered a unique excavation west of Rome near the coast, one of the ports of ancient Rome, Ostia². I was immediately impressed by this spot. After reading some articles and especially the book of the British historican, Russel Meiggs, "Roman Ostia", I understood that I had to do with an ancient city that rose and fell into decay together with Rome. A city populated by ordinary people like you and me. A city where, walking through the now deserted streets, you might expect an ancient inhabitant coming out of a door or sitting on a public toilet.
History brings us from Ostia to the newly built harbours of the emperors Claudius and Trajan a few miles north of Ostia, to the harbour of Portus. Between these two places, on an artificial island, a cemetery was built for the inhabitants of Portus. This unique, partly well-preserved, necropolis gives us, through the epigraphy and decorations, a glimpse of the thoughts and life of the people from the first centuries of our era. We will see that many of the questions and problems of today are timeless.

Gerard Huissen 

 

 

Nowadays we can still find the name Isola Sacra (Sacred Island) on traffic signs in the neighbourhood of the airport of Rome. Here we have to do with a district of the present city Fiumicino, a coastal town on the west side of Rome. Only a few Italians can explain you why that particular part of Fiumicino has that name and even less people are able to give you any information about the origin of the name. We have to admit, for an island you have to look twice and any trace of sacredness is far away. Even the ancient Romans would be surprised when hearing this name.
Where is the name coming from and what was the meaning of this name? First, let's split up the name and look at the first part, Isola.
At the beginning of our era, the original harbour of Rome, Ostia, became too dangerous for large vessels. The Roman emperor Claudius decided to build a new one north of Ostia. Although this harbour gave more protection, nevertheless, during heavy storms even this one seemed to be not efficacious enough. That's the reason the emperor Traianus started  at the beginning of the second century AD to build a third, more inland, harbour. It became an enormous large hexagonal basin. To connect this basin directly with the river Tiber he dug also a junction channel. With this channel, called the Fossa Traiana, the piece of land between Ostia and Portus was surrounded by water and changed into an artificial island.

As far as we know, even the ancient Romans didn't use the name Isola Sacra. In the fifth century AD an ancient writer, called Aethicus of Istria, mentioned in his "Cosmographia" the place as "Libanus Almae Veneris"³. In 536 Procopius used the name Isola Sacra for the first time in his "De bello gothico" ⁴. Why he called the piece of land 'Isola Sacra' is not quite clear. One of the reasons could be the presence of the basilica of St. Hippolytus, an early Christian martyr from Portus. This basilica was built at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century, perhaps on the remains of a Roman temple dedicated to Isis. In the sixties of the 20th century during excavations on this location there has been found a statue of this goddess.
During the following centuries the coastline moved a couple of kilometres to the west. The original beach was running at about the same place as the modern road which connects Ostia with the airport. The Fossa Traiana was extended to the sea and is nowadays known as Fiumara Piccola (small river), the harbour river of Fiumicino.

At the beginning of the first century AD there was already a road between Ostia and Portus, the Via Flavia, later called the Via Severiana. On the south side you could reach Ostia probably via a ferry, and on the north side there was a bridge over the Fossa Traiana, the 'Pons Matidiae' to enter Portus. Not long after the construction of the new harbour, the people of Portus started to bury their dead along this road. According to the Roman law this had to be done outside the city. This part of the website will give you an impression of this unique necropolis. Of the original road, approximately 1300 feet has been preserved, including the part along the necropolis. Research has shown that the Via Severiana had a width of 35 feet and was divided into two separate lanes. The borders of the road were formed by a 3,65 feet thick wall. Each 10 feet there was a buttress to support the wall.

The rediscovery of the necropolis
It took a long time before the ancient Roman graveyard was discovered on the artificial island. After the decline of Portus the necropolis was no longer used or visited, after which it was presumably completely hidden from view at the beginning of the sixth century, because of the sand raised by the wind. The sand-covered tombs looked like natural dunes along the coast for centuries and centuries. Sand formed already a problem when the necropolis was still in use. Keeping the place free of sand was a daily occupation. As far as we know it was the Cardinal of Bouillon, Emmanuel Théodose de la Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Albret, who was in 1699 the first excavator of the necropolis.

The French cardinal was sent to Rome as an ambassador, became Dean of the Sacred College, and consequently Bishop of Ostia between 1700 and 1715. We know that he excavated a big tomb belonging to the family Caesennii. Several inscriptions have been found and published on his behalf. Unfortunately the originals are lost today and the location of this tomb is unknown. According to the publications it measured circa 88,8 x 28,4 m. A tomb of that size is nowadays unknown on the necropolis of Isola Sacra.
It wasn't until 1925 that the burial place at the Isola Sacra was rediscovered during an excavation campaign led by Guido Calza. It appeared that the island housed three clusters of graves. In addition to the discovery of the large cluster of Tombs on the Isola Sacra, which is visited today by many people from all over the world, he also discovered two smaller clusters on the island. These clusters were located in line with the large cemetery, but do not appear to form a unity with it.
First, in 1925, a small group of graves near the old Fossa Traiana was uncovered⁶. In this section of the website we will also describe these graves, as far as possible.  Because these graves are located close to the Trajan's Canal, we refer to them as the Canal tombs to distinguish them from the large necropolis. The graves are located along the road that runs from Isola Sacra to the centre of Fiumicino. You're not allowed to enter this site but you can see the tombs from the road.
The second challenge, in 1930, was the large necropolis where many graves were discovered on both sides of the Via Severiana. The graves on the west side of the Via Severiana in particular had been sheltered by ‘artificial dunes’, which had preserved them very well. Unfortunately, this was not the case on the east side, where only the outlines and foundations are still visible. We will describe the approximately 100 graves on the west side in this section.
The third cluster was brought in to light in 1938 with the approval of the owner of the land on which the graves were located. After the field research was finished, this part of the cemetery was reburied and is therefore no longer open to visitors.

 

The cemetery we see today wasn't the only Roman cultivation on the artificial island. Excavations by Fausto Zevi in the sixties of the last century brought to light the remains of buildings on the Ostia as well as on the Portus side⁷. These buildings served mainly harbour activities. 

No tombs of rich people or men of standing have been found in the necropolis. The tombs we know today were meant for the local middle class, their servants, slaves and freedmen. With the exception of a single sarcophagus, we don't find traces of Judaism or Christianity. Also tombs of followers of other foreign religions are lacking. Almost all 'inhabitants' of this necropolis were Roman citizens and believers of the official Roman religion.

• Sources
• Russel Meiggs - Roman Ostia, At the Clarendon Press 1973
• Guido Calza - Necropoli nell'Isola Sacra'(1940)
• Dr. Jan Theo Bakker.
• 
  notes
• 1: De Styx was de mythologisch rivier waarover de overledene, na betaling van een muntstuk dat aan de dode werd meegegeven in zijn graf, door de veerman Charon naar de onderwereld (Hades) werd gevaren.
• 2: Read our article Alberino Vicari "Il Biondo".
• 3: The paradise of Venus
• 4: Four books written by the Greek historican from Caesarea Maritima, Procopius, in which he described the Italian campaigns by Belisarius and others against the Ostrogoths.
• 5: Le cardinal de Bouillon painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743), 1707, musée Hyacinthe-Rigaud, Perpignan.
• 6: See our article 'Eventually, it's all about people'.
• 7: For more information about other classical buildings at the Isola Sacra, see https://www.ostia-antica.org/isola/text-menu.htm