A horreum was a type of public warehouse used during the ancient Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 period. Although the Latin term is often used to refer to granaries

Granary

A granary is a storehouse for threshed grain or animal feed. In ancient or primitive granaries, pottery is the most common use of storage in these buildings. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals.-Early origins:From ancient times grain...

, Roman horrea were used to store many other types of consumables; the giant Horrea Galbae

Horrea Galbae

The Horrea Galbae were warehouses in the southern part of ancient Rome, located between the southern end of the Aventine Hill and the waste dump of Monte Testaccio. They ran for a substantial distance, possibly extending as far as the Porta Ostensis in the east and the Porticus Aemilia on the...

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 were used not only to store grain

GRAIN

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...

 but also olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...

, wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

, foodstuffs, clothing and even marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

. By the end of the imperial period, the city of Rome had nearly 300 horrea to supply its demands. The biggest were enormous, even by modern standards; the Horrea Galbae contained 140 rooms on the ground floor alone, covering an area of some 225,000 square feet (21,000 m²). The amount of storage space available in the public horrea can be judged by the fact that when the emperor Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...

 died in 211 AD, he is said to have left the city's horrea stocked with enough food to supply Rome's million-strong population for seven years. Smaller (though similar) horrea were a standard feature of Roman towns, cities and forts throughout the empire; well-preserved examples of military horrea have been excavated on Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, notably at the forts of Housesteads

Housesteads

Vercovicium, now known as Housesteads Roman Fort, was an auxiliary fort on Hadrian's Wall, in the Roman province of Britannia. Its ruins are located at Housesteads in the civil parish of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, England, somewhat to the south of Broomlee Lough.-History:In the 2nd century AD,...

, Corbridge

Corbridge

 Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, situated west of Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages in the vicinity include Halton, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe.-Roman fort and town:...

 and South Shields

South Shields

South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...

.

The first horrea were built in Rome towards the end of the 2nd century BC, with the first known public horreum being constructed by the ill-fated tribune

Tribune

Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...

 Gaius Gracchus

Gaius Gracchus

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populari politician in the 2nd century BC and brother of the ill-fated reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus...

 in 123 BC. The word came to be applied any place designated for the preservation of goods; thus it was often used refer to cellars (horrea subterranea), but it could also be applied to a place where artworks were stored, or even to a library. Some public horrea functioned somewhat like banks, where valuables could be stored, but the most important class of horrea were those where foodstuffs such as corn and olive oil were stored and distributed by the state. Rome's insatiable requirements for foodstuffs meant that the amount of goods that passed through some of the city's horrea was immense, even by modern standards. The artificial hill of Monte Testaccio

Monte Testaccio

Monte Testaccio is an artificial mound in Rome composed almost entirely of testae , fragments of broken amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire, some of which were labelled with tituli picti...

 in Rome, which stands behind the site of the Horrea Galbae, is estimated to contain the remains of at least 53 million olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...

 amphorae in which some 6 billion litres (1.58 billion gallons) of oil were imported.

Design and naming

The horrea of Rome and its port, Ostia

Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica is a large archeological site, close to the modern suburb of Ostia , that was the location of the harbour city of ancient Rome, which is approximately 30 km to the northeast. "Ostia" in Latin means "mouth". At the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was Rome's seaport, but, due to...

, stood two or more storeys high. They were built with ramps, rather than staircases, to provide easy access to the upper floors. Grain horrea had their ground floor raised on pillars to reduce the likelihood of damp getting in and spoiling the goods. Many horrea appear to have served as great trading areas with rows of small shops (taberna

Taberna

A taberna was a single room shop covered by a barrel vault within great indoor markets of ancient Rome. Each taberna had a window above it to let light into a wooden attic for storage and had a wide doorway....

e) off a central courtyard; some may have been fairly elaborate, perhaps serving as the equivalent of modern shopping arcades. Others, such as those in Ostia, dispensed with the courtyard and instead had rows of tabernae standing back-to-back. In the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, horrea took a very different design with a single row of very deep tabernae, all opening onto the same side; this reflected an architectural style that was widely followed in the region's palaces and temple complexes, well before the arrival of the Romans.

Unsurprisingly, security and fire protection were major concerns. Horrea were frequently built with very thick walls (as much as 1 m / 3 ft thick) to reduce the danger of fire, and the windows were always narrow and placed high up on the wall to deter theft. Doors were protected with elaborate systems of locks and bolts. Even the largest horrea usually only had two or three external doors, which were often quite narrow and would not have permitted the entrance of carts. The arduous task of moving goods into, out of and around horrea was most probably carried out by manual labour alone; the biggest horrea would thus have had an enormous staff of labourers.

Roman horrea were individually named, some having names indicating the commodities they stored (and probably sold), such as wax

Wax

thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...

 (candelaria), paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 (chartaria) and pepper

Black pepper

Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...

 (piperataria). Others were named after emperors or other individuals connected with the imperial family, such as the aforementioned Horrea Galbae, which were apparently named after the 1st century AD emperor Galba

Galba

Galba , was Roman Emperor for seven months from 68 to 69. Galba was the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, and made a bid for the throne during the rebellion of Julius Vindex...

. A particularly well-preserved horreum in Ostia, the Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana, is known from an inscription to have been named after two freedmen (presumably its owners), Epagathus and Epaphroditus.

External links

• Regio I - Insula VIII - Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana - plans and images of an excavated horreum at Ostia Antica