Cold comfort station: Roman private single pit latrine with a flat white marble seat, installed for the owners of the House of the Fortuna Annonaria in Ostia, the thriving seaport in Lazio, Italy, of ancient Rome. The large town house is named after a seated statue, found in the ruins, of Fortuna, Roman goddess of fortune and luck, holding a cornucopia or horn of plenty in her left hand. The cornucopia would have represented the abundance of grain shipped through the port to Rome – suggesting that the house perhaps belonged to wealthy merchants.
Ostia Antica, Lazio, Italy: cold comfort station … an ancient Roman private single pit latrine with a flat white marble seat, installed for the prosperous owners of the House of the Fortuna Annonaria in Ostia, once the thriving seaport of Rome. The latrine is in a small chamber beside a summer room with a nymphaeum, a grotto or shrine dedicated to one or more female nature deities. The large town house, the Domus della Fortuna Annonaria, is named after a seated statue, found in the ruins, of Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fortune and luck, holding a cornucopia in her left hand. The cornucopia or horn of plenty would have represented the abundance of grain shipped through the port to Rome – suggesting that the house probably belonged to wealthy merchants. The house dates from the 1st century AD, but was improved and adapted between the 2nd and 4th centuries with fine quality mosaics and a colonnaded courtyard around a decorated marble well-head and garden, with a statue in a niche of Juno or Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain crops and fertility. Ostia lies about 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Rome. It was founded on the River Tiber estuary in the 7th century BC, but silting made the river change course and it is now about miles inland. It became a prosperous city of about 50,000 people, in which several emperors built palaces, monuments and public buildings, including communal public toilets for its ordinary citizens. Although large ships were forced to moor at sea as Ostia’s harbour filled with silt, it continued to supply Rome with provisions and treasures from around the Empire, reaching peak prosperity in the 2nd century AD. The site was abandoned in the 9th century, but the extensive remains survive in good condition and the excavated site is now an archaeological park.
Size: 2848px × 4288px
Location: Ostia Antica, Lazio, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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