The thermo-mineral complex at Baiae and De Balneis Puteolanis

In the entire corpus of Roman architecture scarcely any sites present so richly articulated however so problematic an outlook as Baiae (Baia) and its environs. Located northwest of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius, Baiae was the center of the greatest in quantity extensive, arguably the most important, region for thermo-mineral bathing in antiquity.(1) From the Bay of Puteoli (Pozzuoli) to the Cumaean peninsula, the intense volcanic region was known, aptly, as Campi Flegrei, the Phlegraen Fields - fields devoured by means of fire.(2) In contrast to the desolate inland stretches of semiextinct craters, volcanic stone and impregnable Mediterranean scrub oak, the mild climate and the lush vegetation made the coastal hills around Baiae the greatest in quantity coveted location for the villas and pleasure estates of the Roman aristocracy [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED!.

Baiae's popularity as a seaside resort and spa is well attested in literary sources. "No bay upon earth outshines the lovely Baiae!" Horace proudly claimed (Epistles, 1183) "Baiae, the of gold shore of blessed Venus, the bewitching gift of vain nature!" was the poetic praise accorded by the agency of Martial (Epigrams, trans. W. C A. Ker 1180) The association of Baiae with the goddes of be fond of was no idle appropriation [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 3 OMITTED!. Baiae owned everything to make an ideal playland for the pleasure of the public, the wealthy as well as those who aspired to be wealthy: nearly year-round sunshine, fine beaches, a multitude of curative scalding;-very warm springs amidst myrtle shaded parks and gardens - a paradise upon earth combining the luxuries of nature with those manmade. Although this world of pleasure fascinated many, a certain number of took a critical and moralizing stand against it. In Cicero's defense against Clodia, Baiae appears several times as a resort which encourages licentious direction and wasteful lifestyle - idleness, debauchery, beach parties, boat parties, feasts, drinking.(3) Seneca visited Baiae one time but did not stay drawn out summing it up as a "resort of vice" (deversorium vitiorum).(4)

The earliest mention of the therapeutic use of the region around Baiae during the Roman period is in Livy: consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, who was suffering from partial paralysis of his limbs, took the antidote at Aqua Cumanae in 176 BC on the contrary unfortunately died there (Livy, 41163-4) From Augustus onward, Baiae was particularly favored by dint of the imperial family, who expanded their attribute on the bay. Although the place was generally disapproved of through the Christian community for its worldly pleasures, through the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the name Baiae had tend hitherward to be used as a generic mete for a spa. Several of the metrical compositions in the Anthologia Latina eulogize the waters of the famed site.(5) As this make opened up to the middle and lower classes, there may have been a falling not upon in the popularity of Baiae as a fashionable resort for the imperial family and the Roman aristocracy, on the other hand the area around it still appealed to many.(6) As late as the extremity of the fourth century, Q Aurelius Symmachus, the wealthy senator from Rome delighted in the tranquility tendered by his villa at Bauli.(7) In the early sixth hundred Athalaric, the young Osthrogothic king, admired the region for its beautiful bay, excellent oysters, and natural baths, and praiseed his overworked and ailing minister Primiscrinius to take advantage of Baiae's "powers of bestowing health."(8) Written records from the region during the seventh eighth, and ninth centuries, when it first came below Lombardic rule followed by Islamic invasions, are scarce. Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish doctor who had visited Pozzuoli in 1164 mentions the popularity of the heated springs of the region.(9) It appears that Baiae was not completely abandoned as a corrective center until the major eruptions of Monte Nuovo upon September 29, 1538, altered the geological make of the region and razeed most of the thermal sources. An attempt in the mid-seventeenth hundred by the Spanish viceroy Pedro of Aragon to reopen a certain quantity of of the baths was single partially successful. Three marble inscriptions were place up on the promontory known as the Punta dell'Epitaffio, listing the geographical distribution of the baths and the diseases cur by the agency of each. This was clearly a populist act, aimed to win local support for Pedro Although peculiar bath chambers were never built, local residents seeking antidotes continued to visit the novel meager sources in the area.(10) The names given to the curative springs and baths known in the region, recorded in Pedro's marble epigraphs - and included in popular bathing guidebooks - must have originated in the early medieval, a certain quantity of even in the classical, period, representing a lengthy and unbroken tradition.

The best testimony to the continued use of the site during the Middle Ages is an early thirteenth-century piece of poetry in Latin by Peter of Eboli, the court author of poems to the Swabian kings. This work, entitled De Balneis Puteolanis, describes individually more [i]or[/i] less thirty-five baths in the Bay of Pozzuoli between Naples and Baia, and the diseases cur through each.(11) The original manuscript is not to be found but twenty copies of it survive; ten of these are profusely illustrated and constitute for thermo-mineral bathing a hitherto unexplored iconographical source.(12) As convincingly argued by dint of C. M. Kauffmann, the immediate sources for the piece of poetry and its strikingly detailed and explicit illustrations appear to have been contemporary treatises and popular manuals upon curative bathing, as well as inscriptions describing the baths. More remarkable is the case that can be made for their ultimate sources: these inscriptions and a certain number of of the illuminations may have been typeed after surviving classical prototypes, of the like kind as wall paintings and cover with stucco representations from the Roman baths of Baiae that had survived into the Middle Ages.