Baiae (in modern Italian only Baia) is a frazione of the comune of Bacoli, in the Campania region of Italy on the Bay of Naples. It was named after Baius, who was supposedly buried there. It was for several hundred years a fashionable coastal resort, especially towards the end of the period of the Roman Republic. Baiae was even more popular than Pompeii, Naples, and Capri with the super-rich, notorious for the hedonistic temptations on offer, and for rumors of scandal and corruption. Baiae was an integral part of Portus Julius, home port of the western Imperial Fleet of ancient Rome. Baiae was sacked by Muslim raiders in the 8th century AD and was deserted because of malaria in 1500. Most of Baiae is now under water in the Bay of Naples, largely due to local volcanic activity.[1]
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Excavations at the ancient site of Baiae show that the city was arguably host to the most important region for thermo-mineral bathing in antiquity. Baiae had been built on the Cumaean peninsula, which was an active volcanic area, known as the Phlegraean Fields (fields devoured by fire). Baiae consisted of numerous baths, filled with warm mineral water directed to pools from sulfur springs underground. Roman engineers were even able to construct a complex system of chambers that channeled heat beneath the land’s surface into bathing facilities that acted as saunas. However, these baths were not only used for relaxation purposes—they were also often used as medicinal remedies to various illnesses. It is noted that Roman physicians would often attend to their patients at these hot springs as well.[2]
One of the bathing complexes on the hillside included the Temple of Echo (erroneously, since the seventeenth century, also called the Temple of Mercury[3]) housing a pool. The building was so named due to the way that sound echoed around the dome which, at about 21.5 m (71 ft) in diameter, was the largest dome in the world until the construction of the Pantheon in Rome in 128CE.[4][5]
The topographical wonders of Baiae, along with the help of Roman engineers, made the city a perfect candidate for a resort for the ultra wealthy. Many elaborate villas were built in Baiae, including those of Julius Caesar and Nero. In fact, a large part of the town became imperial property under Augustus and later emperors—it was often a getaway for the elite with its large swimming pools and its domed casino.[1] It was at his villa near Baiae that the Emperor Hadrian died in AD 138.
In the trial of Marcus Caelius Rufus in 60 BC, the prominent socialite Clodia was described by the defense as living the life of a harlot in Rome and in the "crowded resort of Baiae", indulging in beach parties and drinking sessions.
Seneca the Younger (4 BC-65 AD) wrote a moral epistle on Baiae and Vice, describing the spa town as being a "vortex of luxury" and a "harbor of vice". Sextus Propertius also described the town as a "den of licentiousness and vice" in one of his elegies.
Baiae was also the location for a stunt (in 39 AD) by the eccentric Caligula (Gaius), who on becoming emperor ordered a temporary floating bridge to be built. Roman historian Suetonius writes that the bridge stretched over three miles from the town of Baiae to the neighboring port of Puteoli. It was built using various ships from around the region, upon which sand was poured to make the bridge passable. Clad in a gold cloak, Caligula supposedly then crossed the bridge on his horse in defiance of Roman astrologer Thrasyllus’ prediction that he had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Gulf of Baiae." [6] Critics warn that this account is most likely inaccurate, and that Suetonius might have used this legend as a means to criticize Caligula.[7] Roman historian Cassius Dio gives perhaps a more objective explanation of the event, and adds that Caligula had ordered resting places and lodging rooms to be made available along the bridge, complete with drinkable water.[8] It appears 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.”[7]
One of the few references to Baiae in modern literature is the short story "The Procurator of Judea" (original French title "Le Procurateur de Judée") by Anatole France (1902).
In Procurator of Judea, the by-then aged and retired Pontius Pilate is shown spending time at the seaside resort of Baiae. One day, he had a chance meeting with Aelius Lamia, a fellow-Roman and old acquaintance of his time in Judea. They discuss the characteristics and eccentricities of Jewish people. Pilate is very harsh in his assessment of them while Lamia is sympathetic. The discussion is long but we find no mention of the Messiah affair. Before the story climaxes, Jesus is mentioned just once, without naming, as just some mad fellow who took upon himself the task of driving merchants out of the Jerusalem temple. Towards the end, the pleasure-loving Lamia spoke of a bewitching Judean beauty with liquid-fire eyes and supple hips (perhaps Mary Magdalene), later rumored to have joined a little band of men and women following a young preacher from Galilee called Jesus the Nazarene who was later crucified for some crime or other.[9]
In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ode to the West Wind," stanza III includes the line: "Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay."
Baiae is the site of a murder in the mystery Under the Shadow of Vesuvius by John Maddox Roberts, one of his SPQR series, featuring Decius Caecilius Metellus.
The Roman emperor Hadrian makes several trips to the Baiae, including his last, in Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian.
A cache of plaster casts of Hellenistic sculpture has been found in a cellar room of the Baths of Sosandra at Baiae and is now on display in the Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei at Baiae.[10] It suggests a workshop mass-producing marble or bronze copies of Hellenistic and Greek sculptures for the Roman market from bronze original sculptures. These casts include parts of many famous sculptures such as the Harmodius and Aristogeiton.[11] and the Athena of Velletri.
Coordinates: 40°49′00″N 14°04′11″E / 40.8166667°N 14.06972°E
BAIAE, an ancient city of Campania, Italy, io m. W. of Neapolis, on the Sinus Baianus, a bay on the W. coast of the Gulf of Puteoli. It is said to derive its name from Baios, the helmsman of Ulysses, whose grave was shown there; it was originally, perhaps, the harbour of Cumae. It was principally famous, however, for its warm sulphur springs, remarkable for their variety and curative properties (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxi. 4), its mild climate, and its luxuriant vegetation (though in summer there was some malaria in the low ground). It was already frequented, especially by the rich, at the end of the republican period; and in Strabo's day it was as large as Puteoli. Julius Caesar possessed a villa here, the remains of which are probably to be recognized in some large substructures on the ridge above the 16th-century castle. Baiae was a favourite residence of the emperors. Nero built a huge villa probably on the site now occupied by the castle. Hadrian died in Caesar's villa in A.D. 138, and Alexander Severus erected large buildings for his mother. Baiae never became, however, an independent town, but formed part of the territory of Cumae. Three glass vases with views of the coast and its buildings were published by H. Jordan in Archdologische Zeitung (1868, 91). The luxury and immorality of the life of Baiae under both the republic and the empire are frequently spoken of by ancient writers.
Near Baiae was the villa resort of Bauli, so called from the 1 30aata (stalls) in which the oxen of Geryon were' concealed by Hercules. By some it is identified with the modern village of Bacoli (owing to a presumed similarity to the ancient name), 2 m. S.S.E. of Baiae; by others with the Punta dell' Epitaffio, 1 m. N.E. of Baiae (see G. B. de Rossi in Notizie degli scavi, 1888, 709). At Bauli, Pompey and Hortensius possessed villas, the former on the hills, while that of the latter, on the shores of the Lacus Lucrinus, was remarkable for its tame lampreys and as the scene of the dialogue in the second book of Cicero's Academica Priora; it afterwards became imperial property and was the scene of Agrippina's murder by Nero. It was from Bauli to Puteoli that Caligula built his bridge of boats.
Of the once splendid villas and baths of Baiae and its district, the foundations of which were often thrown far out into the sea, considerable, though fragmentary, remains exist. It is not, as a rule, possible to identify the various buildings, and the names which have been applied to the ruins are not authenticated. At Baiae itself there exist three large and lofty domed buildings, two octagonal, one circular, and all circular in the interior, of opus reticulatum and brick, which, though popularly called temples, are remains of baths or nymphaea. The Punta dell' Epitaffio also is covered with remains, while at Bacoli are several ruins - to the north of the village a small theatre, called the tomb of Agrippina; under the village the remains of a large villa; to the E. the remains of a large water reservoir, the so-called Cento Camerelle; to the S. another with a vaulted ceiling, known as the piscina mirabilis, measuring 230 by 85 ft. The villa of Marius, which was bought by Lucullus, and afterwards came into the possession of the imperial house, was the scene of the death of Tiberius. It is sometimes spoken of as Baiana, sometimes as Misenensis, and is perhaps to be sought at Bacoli (Th. Mommsen in Corp. Inscrip. Latin., x., Berlin, 1883, 1748), though Beloch inclines to place it on the promontory S. of Misenum, and this perhaps agrees better with the description given by Phaedrus.
Baiae was devastated by the Saracens in the 8th century and entirely deserted on account of malaria in 1500.
See J. Beloch, Campanien (2nd ed., Breslau, 1890), 180 seq.
(T. As.)
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Categories: B-BA | Southern Italy
   | The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. - The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, by C. Suetonius Tranquillus; |
| | Encyclopedia Britannica Online. - Baiae (historic site, Italy) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia |
| | Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. - Database Search - The Beazley Archive |
| | The thermo-mineral complex at Baiae and De Balneis Puteolanis - The thermo-mineral complex at Baiae and De Balneis Puteolanis. (01-MAR-96) The Art Bulletin |
| | The Ancient Baths of Baiae - The Ancient Baths of Baiae (modern Baia, Campania) 3 of 3 |
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