A synagogue older than the Colosseum

Jews have been present in Rome for more than 2,000 years. The community grew sharply after 70 CE, when captives deported by Titus arrived following the destruction of the Second Temple – and it is to roughly this period that the Synagogue of Ostia Antica belongs, at the mouth of the Tiber where Rome’s port once stood.

Its first phase dates to the 1st century CE, which makes it older than the Colosseum. It is the oldest synagogue known in Europe, the largest found in the western Roman world, and the only synagogue of its era still standing rather than reconstructed from foundations.

It was found in 1961, during roadworks for the new airport at Fiumicino.

What survives

The building was in continuous use for some four hundred years and rebuilt several times, so what you see is layered.

The main hall, with its benches along the walls and the monumental gateway of four marble columns that divided it from the vestibule.

The aedicula – the Torah ark – added in the 4th century, raised on a platform and reached by steps. The corbels that supported it are carved with menorahs, a lulav, an etrog and a shofar: the detail that identified the building beyond dispute.

The oven and the side rooms, which suggest the preparation of unleavened bread and a communal function well beyond prayer.

The orientation: the hall faces southeast, towards Jerusalem.

A Greek and Latin inscription records a donor, Mindis Faustos, who paid for the ark – one of the earliest such dedications known anywhere.

The rest of Ostia

The synagogue sits inside one of the best-preserved Roman towns anywhere, and Ostia is far quieter than Pompeii. The Baths of Neptune with their black-and-white mosaics, the Theatre, still used for summer performances, the Square of the Guilds with mosaic trade signs of shipping companies from across the empire, the Thermopolium – a Roman bar with its counter and menu fresco intact – and streets of apartment blocks that make the ordinary business of Roman life legible in a way the Forum never does.

That context matters: the synagogue was not an isolated curiosity but part of a working, cosmopolitan port.

Visiting

Ostia Antica is about 25 km from Rome, roughly forty minutes by train from Piramide, or half an hour by car. Allow half a day. The site is extensive and largely unshaded, so summer visits are best made early, with water and a hat.

The synagogue stands at the far eastern edge of the excavations, a good fifteen minutes’ walk from the entrance, and many visitors never reach it. It is worth going straight there first.

Ostia combines well with the Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini for a full day on ancient Jewish Rome.

You may enjoy this virtual reconstruction of the Synagogue of ancient Ostia.