[4] 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,[5] 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.

This obstacle was overcome by the Emperor Trajan who built a 35 km (22 mi) long aqueduct to Ravenna, that might also have supplied Classe.

[11] After the fleet was built, the population of the soldiers and their families living there grew slowly but steadily.

[15] The city of Ravenna was sacked at least twice in the 250s and 260s, and the harbor was no longer maintained; it started drying out and began filling with silt.

[16] Despite this, as early as 306, Roman emperors started staying at Ravenna in order to watch the harbor to see if any enemies were close.

[17] When Ravenna was chosen as an official western imperial capital in 402, Classe became more prosperous than ever, and the residential area to the south of the harbor was surrounded by a wall in the late 4th century[18] A vital part of the royal administration was its grain warehouse and distribution.

[19] Even after 476, when Ravenna was no longer a Roman imperial capital, it and its port survived, and the town of Classe was restored under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric.

[20] Because there were no other large cities in the area, families stayed, putting down roots in Ravenna and Classe.

Other churches near Sant'Apollinare were dedicated to other early bishops who had been buried there, as this was the region in which cemeteries were located in the Roman period.

[25] Finally, the church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in the city of Ravenna features a mosaics depicting the harbor of Classe in the 520s.

The city of Classe is walled with an amphitheatre, basilica and the entrance of the harbor is flanked by two lighthouses.

Roman imperial rule came to an end when in 476, Odoacer, a Germanic magister militum, deposed the Western emperor Romulus Augustulus and declared himself king of Italy.

Theodoric was successful in destroying Odoacer’s kingdom, but he subsequently declared himself king of Italy, and established his capital at Ravenna.

Emperor Justinian I opposed the Ostrogothic rule of Italy on the grounds that the Arian sect constituted a heresy.

He sent his general Belisarius to recapture Italy, including Ravenna and Classe, for the eastern half of the empire.

[32] During the late 6th century, the barbarian group known as the Lombards invaded Ravenna and plundered Classe in 579.

The raid was led by Faroald, the Duke of Spoleto, who controlled the cities for a short time.

Pepin's son Charlemagne's conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774 saw the two cities turned over to the Pope and they became part of the newly formed Papal States.

[40] Classe could hold a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships and could accommodate arsenals, magazines and barracks.

The fleet employed ax makers, carpenters, doctors, flag bearers, horn players, officers, oarsmen, pilots, repair personnel, rhythm keepers for oarsmen, scribes, sailors, and weapons masters.

[43] Although little evidence exists, recent scholarly consensus rejects the assumption that there were no pirates in the Mediterranean during the early Empire, preferring to credit the fleet at Classe with their suppression.

The eastern part of the Roman Empire understood how important Classe was as a military port.

There are two main sources: Appian, the historian who in 39 BCE stated that: Augustus ordered new buildings at Classe.

This means that archeologists are forced to rely on epigraphic evidence such as wall carvings, mosaics and tombstones when trying to reconstruct what life was like in Classe.