At the same time Constantine Augustus by request of Silvester, the bishop, built a basilica in the city of Hostia1 near Portus, the harbor city of Rome, to the blessed apostles Peter and Paul and to John the Baptist, where he offered the following gifts :
a silver paten, weighing 30 lbs.;
10 silver chalices, weighing each two lbs.; [or: 5 lbs.;]
2 silver pitchers, weighing each 10 lbs.;
30 silver chandeliers, weighing each 5 lbs.;
a silver goblets, weighing each 8 lbs.;
a single silver paten for the chrism, weighing 10 lbs.;
a bowl of silver for baptism, weighing 20 lbs.;
the island which is called Assis2, which lies between Portus and Hostia;
all the property along the sea as far as Digitus Solis3, yielding 655 sol.; [or: 300 sol.;]
the property of the Greeks in the region of Ardea, yielding 80 sol.;
the property of Quiritus in the region of Hostia, yielding 311 sol.;
the property of Balneolum in the region of Ostia, yielding 42 sol.;
the property Nymfulae, yielding 30 sol.
Likewise that which Gallicanus4 offered to the aforesaid basilica of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and of John the Baptist; he offered the following:
a silver crown with dolphins, weighing 20 lbs.;
a silver chalice carved in relief, weighing 15 lbs.;
a silver pitcher, weighing 18 lbs.;
the estate Mallianum5 in the Sabine region, yielding 115 and one third sol.;
the estate Picturm in the region of Vellitrae6, yielding 43 sol.;
the estate of the Suri on the Via Claudia in the region of Veii7, yielding 56 sol.;
the Gargilian estate in the region of Suessa8, yielding 655 sol.
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1. Ostia. Modern excavations on the site of the ancient city have not so far revealed any Christian church or monument. Portus is, of course, the modem Porto on the right bank of the Tiber.
2. This is apparently the island of the delta, formed by the two branches of the Tiber at its mouth, but the name occurs nowhere else.
3. Unknown.
4. The Acts of St. Gallicanus, composed later than the Lib. Pont. and in part based upon it, ascribed to him the building of a basilica and hospital at Ostia. It seems likely that the legendary saint is a reminiscence of the historical character Pammachius, the proconsul and senator, who built a church and hospital at Porto toward the end of the fourth century and also the church over the house of the martyrs John and Paul on the Coelian Hill at Rome. The charitable institution at Porto is the earliest of the kind known. The site has been explored sufficiently to show the general plan: a basilica opening off a square court with rooms and halls for the poor and sick arranged about it. Duchesne, op. cit., p. 199, n. 99. Frothingham, Monuments of Christian Rome, pp. 48, 49.
5. Magliano, the present seat of the bishopric of Sabinum.
6. Velitrae, now Velletri in Latium.
7. The ancient Etruscan town stood near the site of the modern village of Isola.
8. A property of the same name and situation is included among the lands bestowed upon the Lateran basilica. Supra., p. 49.
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