Civitas Classis

About

Classe was a commercial port located 4 km (2.5 mi) east south east from Ravenna, Italy. It was near the head of the Adriatic coast. For almost five hundred years it was an important strategic military port. When it was not being used as a military port, it was an important commercial port for the imperial capital of Ravenna in the Roman Empire. Classe comes from the Latin word classis, meaning fleet.

Republican period: There was a small port and harbor for commercial trade. The city of Ravenna, north of the harbor, was founded in the late 3rd or early 2nd century BC.

Sometime between 35 and 12 BC, Octavian (later known as emperor Augustus) established Ravenna's harbor as one of the home ports for his new Roman navy. South of the harbor, the area was occupied mainly by cemeteries, but by the 2nd century AD a town, known in Latin as Classis, had grown up. Augustus may have chosen this site because of its strategic position. The area in which Augustus wanted to construct Classe was in a lagoon. It was impregnable from land and surrounded by marshes. The base was artificially constructed in this lagoon. Unlike...