The House of Diana in Ostia Antiqua, June 1995

The description of the House of Diana is rather detailed and therefore atypical for the Topographical Dictionary. We decided to go into details because the building has been preserved quite well, because the function is still being debated, and because trenches were dug recently (and we have just three HTML-pages to solve the problem).

The House of Diana was excavated by Guido Calza in the years 1914-1916. The building is usually dated to the Antonine period (c. 150 AD; yellow opus latericium). Excavations in the years 1994-1997 by Alfredo Marinucci have led to many suggestions for a revision of the chronology. The final publication of these recent excavations has not yet appeared. Here the building will first be described as it appeared before Marinucci dug his trenches, following the descriptions by Calza and Packer.

The building is at a higher level than the surrounding streets: Via dei Balconi to the west and Via di Diana to the south. Along the west and south facade is a sidewalk. To the east is an alley, beyond which is the Caseggiato dei Molini, to the north is the Caseggiato di Menandro.

In the south-east corner of the building is a travertine staircase (1). The first ramp consists of 16 treads. Five treads of the second ramp have been preserved. Next to the staircase is the main entrance corridor (3). A room behind the staircase (2) may have been a porter’s room. Rooms 4 and 6 were shops, with backrooms 5 and 7. Above the entrances to the shops are mezzanine-windows. Above the door in the north wall of shop 4 are two windows. In the south-west corner of the same shop is a basin (opus vittatum). In the north-west corner of shop 6 the basis has been preserved (with four treads) of the ladder leading to the mezzanine. In shop 4 paintings have been preserved: on the east and west wall are white panels with red, green and yellow borders. Two of the borders frame female figures, one of these perhaps Fortuna. Another border frames a large hanging bird. Van Essen assigns these paintings to the period of Marcus Aurelius. The paintings on the west wall were later covered by red panels. In the east part of the north wall of backroom 5 is a door, the lower part of which was blocked with opus vittatum. In the west part of the same wall is a window, that was later blocked. In the north-east corner of the room is a basis of opus vittatum. In the west part of the north wall of backroom 7 is a door. In the east part of the same wall is a window, that was later blocked with vittatum. On the floor are remains of a coarse, white mosaic. On the walls are remains of paintings: red frames on a white background, containing birds, fishes, and some architectural motifs. These paintings are dated to c. 250-275 AD by Van Essen.

Along Via dei Balconi are shops 8-11, 15 and 16. Mezzanine-windows have been preserved above the doors. Between shops 8 and 9 is a door. The entrance in the west wall of shop 8 was later blocked with bricks. In the western corners of shops 9, 10 and 11 brick supporting piers were later added. A door in the north wall of 11 leads to the narrow entrance corridor 12. This corridor was later almost completely filled by brick walls that reach the height of the spring of the barrel vault. On the floor is opus spicatum. Room 13 contains a travertine staircase. Treads of the second and third flight have been preserved. The understairs was reached from corridor 12. In the east wall of the understairs is a window. Passage 14 has a door leading to shop 15. In the east wall is a slit window. The entrance, from the west, was later closed with bricks. In shop 16 are remains of a floor of bipedales.

We now return to the south-east corner of the building, where we find a large latrine (17). There is a drain along the east and south walls. The seats have not been preserved. The room is covered by a barrel vault. In the east wall is a window. To the west of the latrine is passage 18, covered by a barrel vault and with a floor of opus spicatum. To the north of the latrine is room 19, that once contained a wooden staircase: trace