The Czech travel guide slumped in his chair, hair disheveled, eyes distracted, sipping a beer, then coffee at the Ostia Antica bar and bistro just past the tiny railway stop. He was tired, he said, of leading groups through the maze of Europe’s famous sights, explaining history, significance, value. His 42-member entourage would soon return from dissecting the massive ruins of the excavated Roman city — avenues, therma, fast-food kitchens, masks. We needed no guide to make our way along the brick-lined streets, stopping to stare at frescoes, mosaics, the sprawling theater. Ostia dwarfed Pompeii in size, if not drama. No contorted bodies, no brothels or sewers. Only a meticulously gridded urban sprawl. Headless sculptures heralded the humanity of history. Crumbling sarcophagi held water like broken baths. Few others like us tread the slick-stone path: The grimy chaos of Roma replaced by Ostia’s bucolic Pax. Its stone-masked ghosts, spent from wandering, embraced the resurrected statues in the stately museum. Peace in Apollonian beauty. New life springs from eroding stone. We needed no guide to show us where the tired spirit rests. Here, in the shadows of Ostia Antica, brick by brick, history was explained.
Prose poem.
Ostia Antica is a suburb of Rome, with Europe's largest excavated Roman city.
"Pax" means "peace.."Therma" are baths.
