Word: baiae
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From about the time Julius Caesar was a problem child, Baiae, a few miles north of modern Naples, was Rome's ritziest seaside resort. There the patricians, attracted by the hot springs which gushed from the hillsides, built their sumptuous villas on terraces cut in the slope. Elaborate baths (hot and cold swimming pools with steam rooms, massage and floor shows) cleansed and entertained vacationing senators and consuls. The place acquired a highly questionable reputation. The dramatist Terence wrote: "At Baiae one never knows what the night will bring," and the poet Propertius warned his girl friend that...
...Rome decayed, Baiae (now Baia) became a scraggly village below a vineyard-covered slope with a few resistant ruins poking out of the soil. Antiquarians knew for centuries that fascinating things must lie under the vine roots, but there was little digging. The vineyard owners would not sell their land, until at last, under Mussolini, who would have appreciated the Roman Baiae, the vineyards were expropriated and turned over to the diggers...
Last week Archaeologist Amadeo Maiuri of the National Museum in Naples formally opened to the public a partially excavated Baiae. During 1,500 years, many feet of soil had crept down the slope or been nudged down by earthquakes. When this was dug away, some of the splendors of the gaudy resort emerged fairly intact. Facing the sea are 300 yards of villas and terraces. Some of their walls are still covered with paintings of nymphs and satyrs. Two marble and ceramic staircases lead to the upper terraces. Other finds: shower rooms, sculptures of amazons and a Venus, a small...
...Pompeii," said Archaeologist Maiuri, "we see the Romans' daily life. At Baiae we see how the Roman aristocracy lived and lusted...
...Nero invited his mother Agrippina to Baiae. On her way home she narrowly escaped death when her ship, obviously sabotaged, sank from under her; after she got home, Nero-egged on by his mistress Poppaea, who disliked the lady-used the surer method of having Agrippina clubbed and stabbed to death...