Baia

History

Baiae was built on the Cumaean Peninsula in the Phlegraean Fields, an active volcanic area, on the side of an ancient crater sloping down to the shore. It was perhaps originally developed as the port for Cumae, the Portus Baianus. It also benefitted from thermal springs for bathing establishments.

Around 80 BC it became a fashionable resort for the Roman aristocracy. Marius, Lucullus, and Pompey all frequented it. Julius Caesar had a villa there, and much of the town became imperial property under Augustus.

From 36 BC, Baiae included Portus Julius, the base of the western fleet of the Roman Navy before it was abandoned because of the silting up of Lake Lucrinus (from which a short channel led to Lake Avernus) for the two harbours at Cape Miseno 4 miles (6.4 km) south.

Baiae was already notorious for the hedonistic lifestyle of its residents and guests in the Republican era. In 56 BC, the prominent socialite Clodia was condemned by the defence at the trial of Marcus Caelius Rufus as living as a harlot in Rome and at the "crowded resort of Baiae", indulging in beach parties and long drinking sessions. An elegy by Sextus Propertius written in the Augustan Age describes it as a "den of licentiousness and vice". In the 1st century, "Baiae and Vice" formed one of the moral epistles written by Seneca the Younger; he described it as a "vortex of luxury" and a "harbour of vice" where girls went to play at being girls, old women as girls and some men as girls according to a first century BC wag.

Nero had a notable villa constructed in the middle of the 1st century and Hadrian died at his villa in AD 138. It was also a favourite spot of the emperor Septimius Severus. The resorts sometimes capitalised on their imperial associations: Suetonius mentions in his history that the cloak, brooch, and gold bulla given to the young Tiberius by Pompey's daughter Pompeia Magna were still on display around AD 120. …

The Baianus lacus

The bay of Baia constitutes the remains of an ancient crater partly submerged in and invaded by the sea. In Roman times it was a complete coastal lagoon, the Baianus lacus, and Roman buildings were located on a sandy expanse between the sea and the eastern bank of the Baianus lacus, now submerged, and occupied the internal slope of the crater.

The channel between the lagoon and the sea made by cutting the sandy isthmus that separated them, and is 32 m wide and delimited by two piers about 230 m long and 9 wide. The piers were made of concrete with tuff chips arranged in layers.

The concrete conglomerate was thrown into wooden caissons (arcae) testified by the presence of the typical holes left by the construction piles. In some cases the posts and the planking of the formwork are still perfectly preserved. The north pier is partly preserved in a 63 m length starting from the east.

Archaeology

The statue of the "Aphrodite of Baiae", a variant of the Venus de Medici, was supposedly excavated sometime before 1803, when the English antiquary Thomas Hope began displaying it in his gallery on Duchess Street in London.

The important archaeological remains were intensively excavated from 1941, revealing layers of buildings, villas and thermal complexes belonging to periods from the late Republican age, the Augustan, Hadrianic to the late Empire.

A cache of plaster casts of Hellenistic sculptures was discovered in the cellar of the Baths of Sosandra at Baiae; they are now displayed at the town's archaeological museum. The collection includes parts of several famous sculptures, including Athens's Harmodius and Aristogeiton and the Athena of Velletri. It suggests that the area had a workshop mass-producing marble or bronze copies of Greek art for the Italian market.

In April 2023 the sunken remains of an ancient Roman villa including marble tiled flooring, numerous marble columns and an ornate mosaic were discovered by underwater archaeologists from the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park. The mosaic included crossing braids and hexagons with concave sides.