JOSEPH DE CA'TH LON DIVES INTO THE RUINS OF BAIA

Joseph de Ca'th Lon loves diving

Today, The Grandma has been reading an archaeologic guide about Baia, in Naples, that Joseph de Ca'th Lon brought her some days ago.

Joseph has been in Baia practising one of his favourite sports, diving. He was able to enjoy the great chance of diving between ancient ruins under the sea and discover the past of these lands thanks to its monuments.

Baiae, in Neapolitan Baia, was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples, and now in the comune of Bacoli. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic, when it was reckoned as superior to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Capri by the super-rich who built luxurious villas here from 100 BC to 500 AD. 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, and recent underwater archaeology has revealed many of the fine buildings now protected in the submerged archaeological park.

 More information: Underwater Archeological Park of Baiae

Many impressive buildings from the upper town can be seen in the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia.

Baiae was said to have been named after Baius in Greek Βαῖος, Baîos, the helmsman of Odysseus's ship in Homer's Odyssey, who was supposedly buried nearby.

Parco Sommerso di Baiae, Naples

The adjacent Baian Gulf, in Latin Sinus Baianus 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 Aquae Cumanae, Cumaean Waters.

Baiae was built on the Cumaean Peninsula in the Phlegraean Fields, an active volcanic area. It was perhaps originally developed as the port for Cumae.

Baiae was particularly fashionable towards the end of the Roman Republic. Marius, Lucullus, and Pompey all frequented it. Julius Caesar had a villa there, and much of the town became imperial property under Augustus. 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.

More information: BBC

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.

Parco Sommerso di Baiae, Naples

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.”

Baiae was notorious for the hedonistic lifestyle of its residents and guests. 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.

More information: Atlas Obscura

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.

It never attained municipal status, being administered throughout by nearby Cumae.

From 36BC, 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 Misenum 4 miles south.

Parco Sommerso di Baiae, Naples

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, Castello di Baja, in the 16th century.

The site had occasionally revealed Roman sculptures. The Aphrodite of Baiae, a variant of the Venus de Medici, was supposedly excavated there 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.

The lowering of the ground 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.

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.

More information: Daily Mail

 There's probably more history now preserved underwater 

than in all the museums of the world combined. 

And there's no law governing that history. It's finders keepers.

Robert Ballard