Are visits to Ostia Antica and Baths of Caracalla fairly similar experiences or do they feel totally different from one another? I know they are both ruins, one being an ancient city and the other being a bath complex. But I'm trying to figure out if seeing Baths of Caracalla on the way back from seeing Ostia Antica will start to feel like "more of the same".
Posted by
northern CA
2815 posts
At Ostia you can be alone with your thoughts and the rubble; not possible really at the Baths.
Posted by
northern CA
2815 posts
I can't resist adding trivia --
the most commonly worshipped deity in Ostia Antica was Serapis, because it was a mercantile port,
and in second place was Mithras, because it was also a naval/military station (Mithras was especially popular with jarheads)
When you look at all the many many Ostia Antica online guides/advice they mention the biggies like Minerva and Neptune and so on but you will rarely see anything about Serapis. Consider why that might be.
Also, people still describe Mithraism as mysterious and unkown and He Himself as a Persian import, but that is a confusion with a proto-vedic/zoroastrian deity Mitra (which means [platonic] friend in Sanskrit) but the mysteries of Mithras have been successfully solved, see for instance:
The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World Paperback – March 28, 1991
by David Ulansey (Author)
Ok, I won't leave you hanging regarding Serapis -- he was worshipped as a redeemer and savior who granted believers eternal life, and he came from the southeastern side of the Holy Land, Egypt-ward, and was incorporated into Greek and Roman practice that Ptolemy I promoted him to Zeus's place and added healing, fertility, and the Sun to His superpowers.
Serapis had so much overlap with Jesus for a while there that Roman bureaucrats would call both their followers christians and some of the Serapians called themselves Bishops of Christ. When Emperor Tiberius kicked the Jews out of Rome, which you will have heard about during your tour of the Tiber on your way to Trastevere, he included the Serapis people in the expulsion order.
The Britannica entry is confused and confusing but still worth a look:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Serapis
Note that the early xtians also 'borrowed' a lot of Mithras's biographical details to give Jesus a back-story, and that's why he eventually was portrayed as youthful/beardless rather than appearing more similar to Serapis. Mithras' birthday was December 25th and so on.
Spoiler alert!
Mithras HQ was in Tarsus and there were very advanced astronomical/astrological research facilities there, and they first figured out the precession of the equinox there, just a couple of generations before a voluble preacher name Saul/Paul was brought up there.
Here's the confusing Britannica explanation for that:
https://www.britannica.com/science/precession-of-the-equinoxes