The naval Battle of Ostia took place in 849 between some Saracen pirates and an Italian league of Papal

Papal States

The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

, Neapolitan

Duchy of Naples

The Duchy of Naples began as a Byzantine province that was constituted in the seventh century, in the reduced coastal lands that the Lombards had not conquered during their invasion of Italy in the sixth century...

, Amalfitan

Duchy of Amalfi

The Duchy of Amalfi or the Republic of Amalfi was a de facto independent state centred on the Southern Italian city of Amalfi during the 10th and 11th centuries. The city and its territory were originally part of the larger ducatus Neapolitanus, governed by a patrician, but it extracted itself...

 and Gaetan

Duchy of Gaeta

The Duchy of Gaeta was an early medieval state centred on the coastal South Italian city of Gaeta. It began in the early ninth century as the local community began to grow autonomous as Byzantine power lagged in the Mediterranean and the peninsula thanks to Lombard and Saracen incursions.Our...

 ships. The battled ended in favor of the Italian league, as they successfully beat off the pirates. It is one of the few events to occur in southern Italy during the ninth century that is still remembered today, largely for the walls named after Leo and for the Renaissance painting Battaglia di Ostia by Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

.
Starting in 827, Muslim forces had begun to conquer Sicily. In 846, Saracens sacked Rome

Sack of Rome (846)

In 846 Arab raiders plundered the environs of Rome, including the Vatican, sacking Old St. Peter's and St. Paul's-Outside-the-Walls, but were prevented from entering the city itself by the Aurelian Wall...

, raiding various basilicas, including Saint Peter's, for their treasures.
News of a massing of Saracen

Saracen

Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...

 ships off Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

 reached Rome early in 849. A Christian armada, commanded by Caesar

Caesar of Naples

Caesar the Brave was the admiral of the fleet of the Duchy of Naples during the reigns of his father, Sergius I, and brother, Gregory III....

, son of Sergius I of Naples

Sergius I of Naples

Sergius I was the first duke of Naples of his dynasty, often dubbed the "Sergi," which ruled over Naples for almost three centuries from his accession in 840 until the death of his namesake Sergius VII in 1137....

, was assembled off recently refortified Ostia, and Pope Leo IV

Pope Leo IV

Pope Saint Leo IV was pope from 10 April 847 to 17 July 855.A Roman by birth, he was unanimously chosen to succeed Sergius II. When he was elected, on 10 April 847, he was cardinal of Santi Quattro Coronati, and had been subdeacon of Gregory IV and archpriest under his predecessor...

 came out to bless it and communicate the troops (i.e., perform a Mass). After the pirate ships appeared, battle was joined with the Neapolitan galleys in the lead. Midway through the engagement, a storm divided the enemies and the Christian ships managed to return to port. The Muslims, however, were scattered far and wide, with many ships lost and others sent ashore. When the storm died down, the remnants of the Arab fleet were easily picked off, with many prisoners taken.
In the aftermath of the battle, much booty

Booty

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 washed ashore and was pillaged by the locals, per ius naufragii. The prisoners taken in battle were sent to work in chain gang

Chain gang

A chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work, such as mining or timber collecting, as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone...

s building the Leonine Wall which was to encompass the Vatican Hill

Vatican Hill

Vatican Hill is the name given, long before the founding of Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the Tiber opposite the traditional seven hills of Rome...

. Rome would never again be threatened by an Arab army.

Sources

• Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. London: Faber and Faber, 1970.