Revealed, secrets of the Romans’ Sin City
Priceless ancient relics found in sunken resort
IF walls could talk, what shameless tales of wine, women and song – not to mention various other varieties of vice – these submerged ancient Roman remains could tell.
For the priceless statues now covered in seaweed, stunningly well-preserved intricate mosaic floors and other ruins in this series of incredible underwater photographs were once part of a spa resort, Baiae, so notorious for its dissolute goings-on that it became a byword for debauchery.
The city on the Bay of Naples on Italy’s west coast was loved by the super-rich and powerful, including Julius Caesar and the infamously brutal emperor Nero, who treated it as their playground. But it was lambasted by moralists of their day.
Indeed, while it has been likened by some modern commentators to a kind of Las Vegas of its age, what went on in Baiae surpassed even the worst excesses of America’s modern day Sin City, contemporary accounts suggest.
It was a place where ‘unmarried women are common property, old men behave like young boys, and lots of young boys act like young girls’, the Roman scholar Varro wrote in the 1st century BC.
The politician and lawyer Cicero described Baiae as synonymous with lusts, passions, adulteries, orgies and feasting.
Before becoming known for its dubious delights, Baiae had attracted visitors from Rome because of its idyllic location, mild climate and therapeutic mineral springs.
Indeed, the poet Ovid described the resort – named after Baius the helmsman in Homer’s Odyssey – as ‘a favourable place for love-making’. The emperor, Hadrian, known for building Hadrian’s Wall in what was then the Roman province of Britannia, died at his holiday villa in Baiae in 138AD.
So louche did life there become that the statesman and philosopher Seneca felt obliged to recommend that Romans avoid Baiae at all costs. Otherwise, he wrote, you would have to endure ‘persons wandering drunk along the beach, the riotous revelling of sailing parties, the lakes a- din with choral song, and all the other ways in which luxury blazons its sins’.
Most of Baiae, 150 miles south of Rome and 50 miles north of Pompeii, disappeared beneath the waves 1,700 years ago as volcanic activity caused the coastline to retreat more than 400 yards.
While several impressive Roman ruins remain on land, including the Temple of Mercury, the Temple of Venus, and the Temple of Diana, it is the underwater photographs that offer fascinating glimpses of the opulent lifestyle lived by those whose magnificent holiday villas once lined the shoreline.
The images were captured by the fine art and documentary photographer Antonio Busiello. ‘Diving here is like a dive into history, look-
‘Plotted to murder his friend Nero’
ing at ancient Roman ruins underwater is something hard to describe, a beautiful experience indeed,’ he said.
Underwater archaeologists revealed earlier this year how they had discovered what they thought were storage tanks in the garden of one villa, but they turned out to be fish ponds which would have been stocked from the sea for the family that lived there.
They also found a section of lead pipe inscribed ‘L Pisonis’. Classics professor Kevin Dicus, form the University of Oregon, explained that it was the mark of the Piso family and the villa it came from was almost certainly the property of Gaius Calpurnius Piso, a close friend of Nero. ‘Ancient texts tell us that Piso plotted to murder the emperor at his villa in Baiae so he could become emperor instead, but he had a change of heart at the last minute,’ Professor Dicus said.
‘When Nero learnt about the plan, he ordered Piso to commit suicide. So we now know where the assassination attempt would have taken place. For the archaeologists it was like finding the Holy Grail.’
The archaeologists also found remains of a mansion they believe was built for the Emperor Claudius. It included a ‘nymphaeum’, a grotto dedicated to nymphs used as a setting for lavish parties.