Ostia
Ostia
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奥斯蒂亚
作者：
W. Rollo
我们大多数人都知道，罗马在台伯河入海口有一个港口城镇，小镇的废墟非常值得一看；但我们中有多少人知道奥斯蒂亚的故事，它带来的非凡兴趣，它提供的关于罗马经济生活的信息，以及罗马工程师在建造一个真正可用的港口时必须面临的巨大困难？奥斯提亚距离罗马大约20英里，对于我们来说，从汽车和火车的角度来看，很难想象和意识到这段旅程在罗马人第一次试图与海岸建立联系的最早时期看起来有多么漫长和艰难--更不用说在那个时候一个旅行者必须面临的危险了。到达时，我们看到这座城市绵延绵延的废墟静静地躺在我们面前，因为不仅它的居民已经离开了奥斯蒂亚，大海和河流也已经离开。黄褐色的台伯河从山上带着沙子下来，是海岸线每年向外移动不少于9码的主要原因；这条河也改变了河床，在这样做的过程中，奥斯蒂亚失去了她曾经伟大的最后一丝痕迹。
Most of us are aware that Rome possessed a harbour town at the mouth of the Tiber and that the ruins of the town are well worth a visit; but how many of us know the story of Ostia, the extraordinary interest attaching to it, the information it supplies on the economic life of Rome, and the great difficulties the Roman engineers had to face in constructing a really serviceable harbour ? Ostia lies about 20 miles from Rome, and for us, thinking in terms of motor-cars and trains, it is far from easy to imagine and to realize how long and difficult this journey must have seemed in the earliest times when the Romans first sought to establish connexion with the coast—not to speak of the dangers to which a traveller in those days must have been exposed. On arrival, we see the far-stretching ruins of the city lying before us in deep silence, for not merely its inhabitants have left Ostia but the sea and the river as well. The tawny Tiber, carrying down sand from the mountains, is the chief cause of the coastline shifting yearly no less than nine yards farther away; the river too has changed its bed and, in doing so, deprived Ostia of the last vestiges of her former greatness.