Since the beginning of the 2nd century BC, the impetuous economic and demographic development had made the former river port in the Forum Boarium totally inadequate: moreover, it could not be enlarged due to its vicinity to the hills.

Here there was the docking place of the wares and raw materials (especially marbles, wheat, wine, oil); they reached the harbor of Ostia by sea and went up the river on barges pulled by buffaloes (towpath).

During the reign of Trajan, new opus mixtum structures were erected, while the plain of Testaccio was gradually filled with warehouses, especially for foodstuffs, with a huge hike when free distributions of wheat and other foodstuffs to citizens began to take place, starting from the age of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (Horrea Sempronia, Galbana, Lolliana, Seiana, Aniciana).

Now there are few visible stretches, bricked in the wall of Lungotevere Testaccio: a quay 500 metres (1,600 ft) long and 90 metres (300 ft) deep, with steps and ramps toward the river, with bulging travertine blocks having holes for ships mooring, very similar – though not so well preserved – to the one in the Roman port of Aquileia.

During the building of modern Testaccio quarter, severals remains of warehouses have come to light: among them, the tomb of the consul Servius Sulpicius Galba, one of the most ancient known individual sepulchres.