Ostia, ancient city of Italy, in Latium, at the mouth of the Tiber River, southwest of Rome. Ostia was famed for its marshes, the salt from which was conveyed over the Salarian Way, and it was the port to which grain from Sicily and Sardinia was delivered. The city was reputedly founded about 640 bc by the fourth legendary king of Rome, Ancus Marcius. Ostia was the naval base of Rome until the harbor became filled with silt. In the 1st century ad the Roman emperor Claudius dug a new harbor about 3 km (about 2 mi) north of Ostia and connected it to the Tiber River by a canal. A new town, Portus, around the new harbor diminished the commercial importance of Ostia. At the height of its prosperity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Ostia had a population of about 75,000. Destroyed in the 9th century ad , it revived during the Middle Ages. The ruins, systematically excavated since 1854, are well preserved and second in importance only to those of Pompeii.
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