A Seaside Resort of the Ancient Romans

The praise bestowed upon the Bay of Baiae, west of Naples, by the poet Horace (65-8 B. C.), is still quoted and justified by modern travellers, after a lapse of eighteen centuries. Baiae is said to have derived its name from Baiusa, companion of Ulysses. Its ancient celebrity was due to its hot springs, which, in the later years of the Republic and the early part of the Empire, attracted the wealthiest of Roman citizens to its shores. From the number of palatial villas erected here, this far-famed seaside resort soon became a typical abode of luxury. It was frequented by the great alone; they admitted no commonalty; only palaces could be erected on the golden shores. Men who elsewhere possessed half a province contended here for half an acre. And when no more land could be had, they built into the sea.

As early as the reign of Augustus and until the fall of Rome, Baiae was prominent among Italian cities for the dissoluteness of its morals. This corruption is fully set forth in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. Yet Baiae is classic and historic ground of great interest. Horace preferred it to all places in the world. It was here that Cicero held his supposed dialogue with Catullus. Hadrian died here, and was buried in the Villa of Cicero. His "Adieu to his Soul," familiar to all scholars, was written here. Nero and Caligula helped to render Baiae notorious by their crimes and follies. Here Nero planned the murder of his mother, Agrippina, and the Villa of Piso was the scene of the conspiracy against Nero, in which Seneca took part. The ruins that crowd the hillside and the coast, and that rise out of the sea, are all that remain of the magnificent villas of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Marius, Sulla, Tiberius, Nero, and others. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Baiae declined. At the commencement of the sixteenth century it was finally deserted by the inhabitants, who migrated to Naples. In the same century Don Pedro of Toledo erected the present Castle, standing on the promontory, and destroyed everything in the deserted city which he could make available for building material. There is a small lighthouse on the coast, and about six hundred people live in this once world-renowned city.