Many guests touchdown at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport will discover a peculiarly hexagonal lake simply exterior it. If it appears to be like artifical, that is as a result of it’s: the Lago Traiano was initially carved out for Rome’s important port. Though that’s not the case, the ruins of the neglected and appropriately named Portus have been excavated and are as we speak open to the general public.
Portus was first constructed by Emperor Claudius as a deepwater maritime port, changing the close by and as we speak extra well-known river port of Ostia. It was meant not solely to create sufficient capability to serve 1-million-strong Roman metropolis, nevertheless it was additionally meant to represent Rome’s unprecedented management over all the Mediterranean. The port’s building was fairly a feat for the time, digging out an almost 500-acre and 20-foot-deep basin out of sand dunes. The lake seen as we speak was a second, equally formidable basin constructed by Emperor Trajan.
Though Portus supplanted Ostia as Rome’s main port for a time, its significance ended because it silted up and Rome as a metropolis declined. The world turned a non-public property, which handed into the palms of the Sforza Cesarini household, who ultimately turned it right into a wildlife oasis. Regardless of its remarkability, Portus has acquired much less consideration from archaeologists than Ostia, and consequently solely a small portion of its enormous space has been excavated. Nonetheless, extra analysis has been executed lately, which hopefully will proceed to disclose new insights into Roman commerce and delivery.
