Ostia
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Ostia. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A town at the mouth of the river Tiber, and the harbor of Rome. Ovidius, P. Naso. A celebrated Roman poet born at Sulmo. He was sent at an early age to Rome, and afterward went to Athens in the sixteenth year of his age, where his progress in the study of eloquence was great. His natural inclination, however, was toward poetry, and to this he devoted his chief attention. His lively genius and fertile imagination soon gained him admirers; the learned became his friends; Vergil, Propertius, Horace, and Tibullus honored him with their correspondence, and Augustus patronized him with unbounded liberality. These favors, however, were transitory, and he was banished to a place on the Euxine Sea by order of the emperor. The true cause of his banishment is not known. His friends ardently entreated the emperor to permit him to return, but in vain, and he died in the seventh or eighth year of his banishment, in the fiftyninth year of his age, A. D. 17. A great portion of his works remains. These consist of the Metamorphoses, Fasti, Epistolae, etc. While his works are occasionally disfigured by indelicacy, they are distinguished by great sweetness and elegance.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an ancient city of Italy, at the mouth of the Tiber, 6 miles from Rome by the "Way of Ostia." It was of great importance as the port of Rome and as a naval station, and for a long period it engrossed the whole trade of Rome by sea. It was destroyed by the Saracens in the 9th century. Its ruins comprise tombs, two temples, a theater, etc. The modern Ostia (founded by Gregory IV. in 830) is a miserable village with but few inhabitants.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote in 1921 the visible ruins amounted to "tombs, two temples, a theater," and modern Ostia was "a miserable village with but few inhabitants." Large-scale digging in 1938-42, ordered for Mussolini's planned 1942 Rome exhibition, uncovered roughly two-thirds of the ancient city, and Ostia Antica is now one of the best-preserved Roman towns anywhere, with apartment blocks, warehouses, bath complexes, the Piazzale delle Corporazioni and more than a dozen mithraea; a synagogue, among the oldest known in Europe, came to light in 1961 during road works for Fiumicino airport. The village has also vanished into the city: Lido di Ostia is a seaside district of Rome with tens of thousands of residents, reached by commuter rail. As the 1900 account's mouth-of-the-Tiber location implies, silting has moved the coast, and the ruins now stand about 3 km inland.
Written for this edition, 2026.