There’s many places where I love walking around in Ostia Antica and one of them is definitely the Domus of the Fortuna Annonaria (food fortune).
Domus is a latin word meaning house and specifically referring to an aristocratic house. Modern words as domestic and dome come from this root.
Even just this site is worth the trip for the quantity and quality of well preserved mosaics and marbles that still decorate portions of this important house that dates back to the 4th century AD, built after readapting a previous republican costruction. Here you can live again the past and the atmosphere of an elegant residence with its everyday life and social events.
Off the main road oriented East-West (Decumanus Maximus) you can only get here if you know the way and for this reason most of the times the Domus is empty and gives its lucky visitors the privilege to enjoy the large spaces exclusively. Fountains and flowers used to decorate the courtyard (peristilio) as well as statues in marble including the Fortuna Annonaria’s (food fortune) which names it and probably protected the business of the wealthy owner. After all, storing large quantities of wheat was an important role of Ostia and the local barns would feed the Capital. Romans had protecting Gods for everything and, being very supersticious, their life was strictly connected to the divine world.
The house was built on two levels, in a silent residential area, decorated with floor mosaics of the She-wolf with Romulus and Remus, Atteon turned into a deer for having spied Diana having a bath in a river and has a well preserved private latrin in the back of the house!
Maurizio Rome Guide 