Rome isn’t a seaside town. It’s about thirteen miles from the coast as the crow flies, and considerably more if you follow the winding path of the Tiber River. That distance, trivial today, was formidable until the mid-twentieth century. Before widespread refrigeration and postwar infrastructure projects connected the city to its coastline, Romans relied on what was local and preserved. That meant freshwater species from the Tiber—eel, catfish, perch, carp, the occasional sturgeon—and pantry staples like salted anchovies from Campania and preserved cod imported from the cold waters of Scandinavia. So while twirling spaghetti alle vongole in Trastevere might feel deeply Roman, seafood has a surprisingly shallow history in the city.

But what the city lacked in coastal access, it made up for in ingenuity and bureaucracy. Nowhere was that more visible than at the Portico d’Ottavia in the Sant’Angelo district, where ancient stone and medieval commerce collided. Rebuilt by Augustus in the first century BCE and dedicated to his sister Octavia, the Portico was once a showpiece of imperial grandeur. It enclosed temples to Juno and Jupiter, a library, and gathering spaces, all designed to telegraph Rome’s cultural supremacy. But like much of the empire, the structure eventually fell into disuse and decay. That is, until fish gave it a second life.

By the twelfth century CE, the Portico and the area around it had morphed into the Pescheria, Rome’s official fish market. Its proximity to the river made it a logical choice, and the shade of awnings anchored to its columns offered some measure of relief from the Roman sun. The market operated there for centuries, and if the ruins could talk, they’d tell stories of piety and power. The city implemented one of the most Roman systems of taxation you can imagine visible in the form of a Latin inscription on one of the brick pillars: Capita piscium, qui longiores erunt quam hic lapis, dato rectoribus, usque ad primas pinnas. (The heads of fish that are longer than this stone must be given to the city magistrates, up to the first fins.) It was a culinary tithe and a practical reminder of who ran the show. The rest of the fish could be sold to the public, but those heads and collars went straight to city hall.

By the sixteenth century, the Portico d’Ottavia sat at the edge of another transformation: the establishment of the Jewish Ghetto. When Pope Paul IV confined Rome’s Jewish population to this flood-prone wedge along the Tiber, the Portico became the unofficial threshold between the Christian city and the segregated Jewish quarter. The fish market was one of the few spaces where both communities mingled daily. Kosher laws permitted the consumption of certain fish, and today, the signature dishes of the cucina ebraica include Baccalà alla Romana and alicioti con l’indivia. Born out of necessity, these dishes evolved into icons.

The fish market lasted until the late nineteenth century, when urban redevelopment pushed the fish trade to Via di San Teodoro near the Circus Maximus (now the location of the weekend Campagna Amica farmers’ market), as civic restoration efforts sought to “clean up” Rome’s historical center. But the Portico remains, flanked by restaurants, echoing with stories. Its columns bear witness to centuries of adaptation from civic structure to fish-stall backdrop and stand as a reminder that, in Rome, ruins tell stories about what people ate, what they sold, and how a city survives through power, and through food.