Baiae (; ) is an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples and now in the comune of Bacoli. It was a resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic, when it was reckoned as superior to Capri, Pompeii, and Herculaneum by wealthy Romans, who built villas here from 100 BC.Strabo Geographica 5.4.7 Ancient authors attest that many emperors built in Baia, almost in competition with their predecessors,Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews XVIII 7, 2 and they and their courts often stayed there. It was notorious for its hedonistic offerings and the attendant rumours of corruption and scandal.
The lower part of the town later became submerged in the sea due to local volcanic, bradyseismic activity which raised or lowered the land. Recent underwater archaeology has revealed many of the fine buildings now protected in the submerged archaeological park.Archaeological park: Parco archeologico sommerso di Baia https://www.parcosommersobaia.beniculturali.it/en/introduzione
Baiae inspired scenes to be depicted on ancient glass flasks made for visitors (probably in Puteoli in the late 3rd to early 4th century AD) many of which have been found scattered throughout the empire, and today kept in many museumsPainter, K. S. “ROMAN FLASKS WITH SCENES OF BAIAE AND PUTEOLI.” Journal of Glass Studies 17 (1975): 54–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24188060. notably in Populonia,The Populonia Bottle https://www.cmog.org/artwork/populonia-bottle Empúries and Warsaw.S.E.Oscrow "The topography of Puteoli and Baiae on the eight glass flasks" Puteoli, 1979, p 77-140
Name Baiae was said to have been named after Baius (, Baîos), the helmsman of Odysseus's ship in Homer's Odyssey, who was supposedly buried nearby. Baiae is referred to by Silius Italicus as sedes Ithacesia Baii because it was founded by Baius.Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Ithacesiae The adjacent "" () was named after the town. It now forms the western part of the Gulf of Pozzuoli.
The settlement was also mentioned in 178 BC under the name ("Cumaean Waters").
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 south.MINIERO, Paola. Il parco sommerso di Baia: da sito archeologico ad area marina protetta In: Comunicare la memoria del Mediterraneo: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Pisa organizzato dalla Regione Toscana [online]. Naples: Publications du Centre Jean Bérard, 2007 <https://books.openedition.org/pcjb/4015>. ,
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.Historia augusta, ch. 25 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.
According to Suetonius, in AD 39, Baiae was the location for a stunt by the eccentric emperor Caligula to answer the astrologer Thrasyllus's prediction that he had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Gulf of Baiae". Caligula ordered a 3-mile-long pontoon bridge to be built from impounded ships of the area, fastened together and weighted with sand, stretching from Baiae to the neighbouring port of Puteoli. Clad in a gold cloak, he then crossed it upon a horse. Cassius Dio's Roman History also includes the event, with the detail that the emperor ordered resting places and lodging rooms with potable water erected at intervals along the bridge. As late as the 18th century, scattered fragments were still being shown to tourists as the "Bridge of Caligula". Malloch has argued that Suetonius's account was likely coloured by his bias against Caligula; instead, he claims that "the act of bridging the Bay of Naples was an excellent and safe means by which to lay the foundation for [Caligula's] military glory."
It never attained municipal status, being administered throughout by nearby Cumae.
At the end of the 4th century, the fabulously wealthy consul Symmachus, who owned several villas in the Bay of Naples,Symmachus Epistles 6.9, 1.3.3—5, 2.26.1 including one called the praetorium in Baiae, wrote of the calm offered by his villa at Bauli (probably Bacoli).Symmachus Epistles 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 8.23.3
In the early 6th century, the Ostrogothic king Athalaric admired the beauty of the area for its bay, the quality of its oysters and baths of natural waters with health restoring powers.Cassiodorus, Epistulae 9.6
The lowering of the ground close to the coast below sea level, due to bradyseism, seems to have occurred in two phases: between the third and fifth centuries, still in the late Imperial era, followed by a more substantial submersion a century later. The lower part of Baiae was largely submerged by the sea by the 8th century.Eduardo Scognamiglio, The survey of the submerged Bay: reteissa.it
Baiae was sacked during the barbarian invasions and again by Muslim raiders in the 8th century. It was deserted owing to recurrent malaria by 1500, but Pedro de Toledo erected a castle, the , in the 16th century.
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.
Monuments
Among the most significant and remarkable remains are several domed baths buildings such as the great Temple of Mercury, the Temple of Venus, and the Temple of Diana. They were traditionally credited to some of the more famous residents of the town's villas, although they were not temples but parts of thermal baths.
The public and private baths of Baiae were filled with warm mineral water directed to their pools from underground hot springs, as many still are today. Roman engineers were also able to construct a complex system of chambers that channelled underground heat into facilities that acted as saunas. In addition to their recreational function, the baths were used in Roman medicine to treat various illnesses and physicians would attend their patients at the springs..
"Temple of Diana"
This colossal ogival dome, today half collapsed, originally collected vapours coming from the ground below and was used for thermal baths. It was decorated with marble friezes depicting hunting scenes.Mileto S. (1998) The Phlegraean Fields, Rome, Newton & Compton, pp. 39, 40, 42, 43, . It is recognisable as the building erected by Alexander Severus (r. 222–235) in honour of his mother Julia Mamaea, and is perhaps a dynastic heroon.
In 1677 Cornelis de Bruijn visited the temple and wrote:
"Then one arrives at the temple of Diana, which is completely ruined, except for a semi-circular structure at the top that still exists. Opposite, there is also a part of the temple of Apollo, next to which one can see the chamber of the nymphs that delight themselves in different spectacles. At the top of it, I saw many figures and bas-reliefs, very strange and beautiful, as the entrance is still reasonably well preserved."
"Temple of Mercury"
The "Temple of Mercury" contains a large diameter dome, the largest in the world prior to the construction of Rome's Pantheon in 128 AD.. The dome has a central hole or oculus, four square skylights, was made with large tuff blocks, and is the oldest known surviving dome made of concrete. Built in the 1st century BC during the late Roman Republic, it was used to enclose the frigidarium or cold pool of the public baths."Baiae, historic site, Italy". Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 6 June 2021. From the eighteenth century descriptions it appeared to have had six niches of which four were semicircular.
"Temple of Venus"