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AVELLA (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
Abella (Abella, Strab., Ptol.: Eth. Abellanus, Insert. ap. Orell.
3316, Avellanus, Plin.: Avella Vecchia), a city in the interior of Campania, about
5 miles NE. of Nola. According to Justin (xx. 1), it was a Greek city of Chalcidic
origin, which would lead us to suppose that it was a colony of Cumae: but at a
later period it had certainly become an Oscan town, as well as the neighboring
city of Nola. No mention of it is found in history, though it must have been at
one time a place of importance. Strabo and Pliny both notice it among the inland
towns of Campania; and though we learn from the Liber de Coloniis, that Vespasian
settled a number of his freedmen and dependants there, yet it appears, both from
that treatise and from Pliny, that it had not then attained the rank of a colony,
a dignity which we find it enjoying in the time of Trajan. It probably became
such in the reign of that emperor. (Strab. p. 249; Plin. iii. 5.9; Ptol. iii.
1.68; Lib. Colon. p. 230; Gruter. Inscr. p. 1096, 1; Zumpt, de Coloniis, p.
400.) We learn from Virgil and Silius Italicus that its territory was not fertile
in corn, but rich in fruit-trees (maliferae Abellae): the neighbourhood also abounded
in filberts or hazelnuts of a very choice quality, which were called from thence
nuces Avellanae (Virg. Aen. vii. 740; Sil. Ital. viii. 545; Plin. xv. 22; Serv.
ad Georg. ii. 65). The modern town of Avella is situated in the plain near the
foot of the Apennines; but the remains of the ancient city, still called Avella
Vecchia, occupy a hill of considerable height, forming one of the underfalls of
the mountains, and command an extensive view of the plain beneath; hence Virgil's
expression despectant moenia Abellae. The ruins are described as extensive, including
the vestiges of an amphitheatre, a temple, and other edifices, as well as a portion
of the ancient walls. (Pratilli, Via Appia, p. 445; Lupuli, Iter Venusin. p. 19;
Romanelli, vol. iii. p. 597; Swinburne, Travels, vol. i. p. 105.) Of the numerous
relics of antiquity discovered here, the most interesting is a long inscription
in the Oscan language, which records a treaty of alliance between the citizens
of Abella and those of Nola. It dates (according to Mommsen) from a period shortly
after the Second Punic War, and is not only curious on account of details concerning
the municipal magistrates, but is one of the most important auxiliaries we possess
for a study of the Oscan language. This curious monument still remains in the
museum of the Seminary at Nola: it has been repeatedly published, among others
by Passeri (Linguae Oscae Specimen Singulare, fol. Romae, 1774), but in the most
complete and satisfactory manner by Lepsius (Inscr. Umbr. et Osc. tab. xxi.) and
Mommsen (Die Unter-Italischen Dialekte, p. 119).
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ERCOLANO (Town) CAMPANIA
Herculaneum (the form Herculanum appears to be erroneous: in the passage
of Cicero (ad Att. vii. 3. § 1) generally cited in support of it, the true reading
seems to be Aeculanum: see Orell. ad loc. Heraixleion, Strab.; Herkoulaneon, Dion
Cass.: Eth. Herculanensis: Ercolano), a town of Campania, situated on the gulf
called the Crater (the Bay of Naples), and at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius. The circumstances
attending its discovery have rendered its name far more celebrated in modern times
than it ever was in antiquity, when it certainly never rose above the condition
of a second-class town. It was, however, a place of great antiquity: its origin
was ascribed by Greek tradition to Hercules, who was supposed to have founded
a small city on the spot, to which he gave his own name. (Dionys. i. 44.) Hence
it is called by Ovid Herculea urbs (Met. xv. 711). But this was doubtless a mere
inference from the name itself, and we have no account of any Greek colony there
in historical times, though it is probable that it must have received a considerable
mixture at least of a Greek population, from the neighbouring cities of Neapolis
or Cumae: and there is no doubt of the extent to which Greek influences had pervaded
the manners and institutions of its inhabitants, in common with those of all this
part of Campania. Strabo's account of its early history is confused; he tells
us it was at first occupied (as well as its neighbour Pompeii) by Oscans, afterwards
by Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians, and after this by the Samnites. (v. p. 247.) It
is doubtful whether he here means by Tyrrhenians the Etruscans, or rather uses
the two names of Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians as nearly synonymous: but there seems
no reason to doubt the fact that Herculaneum may have been at one time a Pelasgic
settlement, and that its population, previous to its conquest by the Samnites,
was partly of Pelasgic and partly of Oscan extraction. Its name, and the legends
which connected it with Hercules, may in this case have been originally Pelasgic,
and subsequently adopted by the Greeks. It fell into the hands of the Samnites
in common with the rest of Campania (Strab. l. c.): and this is all that we know
of its history previous to its passing under the Roman dominion. Nor have we any
particular account of the time at which this took place; for the; Herculaneum
mentioned by Livy (x. 45) as having been taken by the consul Carvilius from the
Samnites in B.C. 293, must certainly be another town of the name situated in the
interior of Samnium, though we have no further clue to its position. The only
occasion on which it plays any part in history is during the Social War, when
it took up arms against the Romans, but was besieged and taken by F. Didius, supported
by a Hirpinian legion under Minatius Magius. (Vell. Pat. ii. 16.) It has been
supposed that a body of Roman colonists was afterwards established there by Sulla
(Zumpt, de Cot. p. 259), but there is no proof of this. It seems, however, to
have been certainly a place of some importance at this time: it enjoyed the rights
of a municipium and appears to have been well fortified, whence Strabo calls it
a fortress (phrourion): he describes it as enjoying a peculiarly healthy situation,
an advantage which it owed to its slightly elevated position, on a projecting
headland. (Strab. v. p. 246.) The historian Sisenna also, in a fragment preserved
by Nonius (iii. p. 207. s. v. Fluvius), describes it as situated on elevated ground
between two rivers. Its ports also were among the best on this line of coast.
(Dionys. i. 44.) It is probable that, when the shores of the beautiful bay of
Naples became so much frequented by the Romans, many of them would have settled
at Herculaneum, or in its immediate neighbourhood, and its municipal opulence
is sufficiently proved by the results of recent discoveries; but though its name
is mentioned by Mela and Florus, as well as by Pliny, among the cities of the
coast of Campania, it is evident that it never rose to a par with the more flourishing
and splendid cities of that wealthy region. (Mela, ii. 4. § 9; Flor. i. 16. §
6; Plin. iii. 5. s. 9.) It is important to bear this in mind in estimating the
value of the discoveries which have been made upon the site.
In the reign of Nero (A.D. 63) Herculaneum suffered severely from
an earthquake, which laid great part of the city in ruins, and seriously damaged
the buildings that remained standing. (Senec. N. Qu. vi. 1.) This was the same
earthquake which nearly destroyed Pompeii, though it is referred by Tacitus to
the preceding year. (Ann. xv. 22.) Sixteen years later, in the reign of Titus
(A.D. 79), a still more serious calamity befell both cities at once, the memorable
eruption of Vesuvius in that year having buried them both under the vast accumulations
of ashes, cinders, and volcanic sand poured forth by that mountain. (Dion Cass.
lxvi. 24.) Herculaneum, from its position at the very foot of the mountain, would
naturally be the first to suffer; and this is evident from the celebrated letter
of the younger Pliny describing the catastrophe, which does not however mention
either Herculaneum or Pompeii by name. (Plin. Ep. vi. 16, 20.) But Retina, where
the elder Pliny first attempted to land, but was prevented by the violence of
the eruption, was in the immediate neighbourhood of the former city. Its close
proximity to Vesuvius was also the cause that the bed of ejected materials under
which Herculaneum was buried assumed a more compact and solid form than that which
covered Pompeii, though it is a mistake to suppose, as has been stated by many
writers, that the former city was overwhelmed by a stream of lava. The substance
with which it is covered is only a kind of volcanic tuff, formed of accumulated
sand and ashes, but partially consolidated by the agency of water, which is often
poured out in large quantities during volcanic eruptions. (Daubeny on Volcanoes,
p. 222, 2nd edit.) The destruction of the unfortunate city was so complete that
no attempt could be made to restore or rebuild it: but it appears that a small
population gradually settled once more upon the site where it was buried, and
hence we again meet with the name of Herculaneum in the Itineraries of the 4th
century. (Tab. Pent.) This later settlement is supposed to have been again destroyed
by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 472; and no trace is subsequently found of
the name.
Though the position of Herculaneum was clearly fixed by the ancient
authorities on the coast between Neapolis and Pompeii, and at the foot of Vesuvius,
its exact site remained long unknown; it was placed by Cluverius at Torre del
Greco, nearly two miles too far to the E. (Cluver. Ital. p. 1154.) But in 1738
the remains of the theatre were accidentally discovered in sinking a well, in
the village of Resina; and excavations, being from this time systematically carried
on, have brought to light a considerable portion of the ancient city, including
the Forum, with two adjacent temples and a Basilica. Unfortunately, the circumstance
that the ground above the site of the buried city is almost wholly occupied by
the large and populous villages of Resina and Portici has thrown great difficulties
in the way of these excavations, which have been carried on wholly by subterranean
galleries; and even the portions thus explored have been for the most part filled
up again with earth and rubbish, after they had been examined, and the portable
objects found carried off. The con sequence is that, while the works of art discovered
here far exceed in value and interest those found at Pompeii, and the bronze statues
especially form some of the choicest ornaments of the Museum at Naples, the remains
of the city itself possess comparatively little interest. The only portion that
remains accessible is the theatre, a noble edifice, built of solid stone, in a
very massive style; it has 18 cunei, or rows of seats, and is calculated to have
been capable of containing 8000 persons. Fragments discovered in it prove that
it was adorned with equestrian statues of bronze, as well as with two chariots
or bigae in gilt bronze; and several statues both in bronze and marble have been
extracted from it. For this splendid edifice, as we learn from an inscription
over the entrance, the citizens of Herculaneum were indebted to the munificence
of a private individual, L. Annius Mammianus Rufus: the date of its erection is
unknown; but it could not have been earlier than the period of the Roman empire,
and the building had consequently existed but a short time previous to its destruction.
From the theatre a handsome street, 36 feet in breadth, and bordered on both sides
by porticoes, led to a large open space or forum, on the N. side of which stood
a Basilica of a noble style of architecture. An inscription informs us that this
was erected at his own cost by M. Nonius Balbus, praetor and proconsul, who at
the same time rebuilt the gates and walls of the city. No part of these has as
yet been discovered, and the plan and extent of the ancient city therefore remain
almost unknown. Not far from the Basilica were discovered two temples, one of
which, as we learn from an inscription, was dedicated to the Mother of the Gods
(Mater Deum), and had been restored by Vespasian after the earthquake of A.D.
63. Another small temple, at a short distance from the theatre, apparently dedicated
to Hercules, was remarkable for the number and beauty of the paintings with which
the walls were adorned, and which have been from thence transported to the Museum
at Naples. At some distance from these buildings, towards the W., and on the opposite
side of a small ravine or watercourse, was found a villa or private house of a
most sumptuous description; and it was from hence that many of the most beautiful
statues which now adorn the Neapolitan Museum were extracted. Still more interest
was at first excited by the discovery in one of the rooms of this villa of a small
library or cabinet of MSS. on rolls of papyrus, which, though charred and blackened
so as to be converted into a substance resembling charcoal, were found to be still
legible. But the hopes at first entertained that we should here recover some of
the lost literary treasures of antiquity have been signally disappointed, the
works discovered being principally treatises on the Epicurean philosophy of very
little interest.
A full account of the early excavations and discoveries at Herculaneum
will be found in Venuti (Prime Scoverte di Ercolano, 4to. Roma, 1748), and in
the more recent work of Iorio (Notizie sugli Scavi di Ercolano, 8vo. Naples, 1827).
The works of art and other monuments discovered on the site, are figured and described
in the magnificent work of Le Antichita di Ercolano, in 8 vols. folio, published
at Naples, from 1757 to 1792. The inscriptions are given by Mommsen (Inscr. Regn.
Neap. pp. 122-127); and an account of the papyri will be found prefixed to the
work entitled Herculanensium Voluminum quae supersunt, of which only two volumes
have been published, in 1793 and 1809. A summary account of the general results
will be found in Romanelli (Viaggio ad Ercolano, 8vo. Naples, 1811), and in Murray's
Handbook for Southern Italy. It is much to be regretted that the superior facilities
afforded by Pompeii have for many years caused Herculaneum to be almost wholly
neglected: even the excavations previously carried on were conducted without system,
and no regular plans were ever taken of the edifices and portions of the city
then explored.
The modern village of Resina, which now covers a large part of the
ruins of Herculaneum, has evidently retained the name of Retina, a place mentioned
only in the letter of Pliny describing the great eruption of Vesuvius in A.D.
79. (Plin. Ep. vi. 16.) It appears to have been a naval station, where a body
of troops belonging to the fleet at Misenum (Classiarii) were at that time posted,
who applied in great terror to Pliny to extricate them from their perilous position.
Hence, it is clear that it must have been close to the sea-coast, and probably
served, as the port of Herculaneum. The exact position of this cannot now be traced,
for the whole of this line of coast has undergone considerable alterations from
volcanic action. The point of the promontory on which the ancient city was situated
is said to be 95 feet within the present line of coast; and the difference at
other points is much more considerable. We learn from Columella (R. R. x. 135)
that Herculaneum possessed salt-works, which he calls Salinae Herculeae, on the
coast to the E., immediately adjoining the territory of Pompeii. The Tabula marks
a station, which it calls Oplontis, between Herculaneum and Pompeii, 6 miles from
the former town; but the name, which is otherwise unknown, is probably corrupt.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MEGARIS (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
A small island on the coast of Campania, mentioned by Pliny (iii. 6. s. 12), who
places it between Pausilypus and Neapolis; it can therefore be no other than the
islet or rock now occupied by the Castel dell' Ovo. It is evidently the same which
is called by Statius Megalia. (Stat. Silv. ii. 2. 80.)
AVELLA (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
Abella or Avella. A town of Campania, not far from Nola, founded by the Chalcidians in Euboea. It was celebrated for its apples, whence Vergil calls it malifera.
DIKEARCHIA (Ancient city) ITALY
Puteoli, now Pozzuoli; originally named Dicaearchia. A celebrated seaport town of Campania, situated on a promontory on the eastern side of the Puteolanus Sinus, and a little to the east of Cumae, was founded by the Greeks of Cumae, B.C. 521, under the name of Dicaearchia. It obtained the name of Puteoli either from its numerous wells or from the stench arising from the mineral springs in its neighbourhood. The town was indebted for its importance to its excellent harbour, which was protected by an extensive mole to which Caligula attached a floating bridge, which extended as far as Baiae, a distance of two miles. Puteoli was the chief emporium for the commerce with Alexandria and with the greater part of Spain. The town was colonized by the Romans in B.C. 194, and also anew by Augustus, Nero, and Vespasian. It was destroyed by Alaric in A.D. 410, by Genseric in 455, and also by Totila in 545, but was on each occasion speedily rebuilt. There are still many ruins of the ancient town at the modern Pozzuoli.
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IRAKLIO (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
A city of Campania, on the coast, and not far from Neapolis
(Naples). The form Herculanum is modern. Nothing is known respecting the origin
of Herculaneum, except that fabulous accounts ascribed its foundation to Hercules
on his return from Spain. It may be inferred, however, from a passage in Strabo,
that the town was of great antiquity. It may be reasonably conjectured, too, that
Herculaneum was a Greek city, but that its name was altered to suit the Latin
or Oscan pronunciation. At first it was only a fortress, which was successively
occupied by the Osci, Tyrrheni, Pelasgi, Samnites, and lastly by the Romans. Being
situated close to the sea, on elevated ground, it was exposed to the southwest
wind, and from that circumstance was reckoned particularly healthful. We learn
from Velleius Paterculus that Herculaneum suffered considerably during the civil
wars. This place is mentioned also by Mela. Ovid likewise notices it under the
name of Urbs Herculea. Herculaneum, according to the common account, was overwhelmed
by an eruption of Vesuvius in the first year of the reign of Titus, A.D. 79. Pompeii
and Stabiae, which stood near, shared the same fate. It is possible, however,
that the subversion of Herculaneum was not sudden, but progressive, since Seneca
mentions a partial demolition which it sustained from an earthquake. After being
buried for more than sixteen hundred years, these cities were accidentally discovered--Herculaneum
in 1719, by labourers in deepening a well; and Pompeii some years after. It appears
that Herculaneum is in no part less than forty feet, and in some parts one hundred
and twelve feet below the surface of the ground. Little was done to exhume the
city until 1738, when some regular excavations were made. Above the city stand
the two modern villages of Portici and Resina in the suburbs of Naples; and to
the fear of undermining their buildings is due the fact that so much of the ancient
city is still beneath the earth. The chief edifice of Herculaneum that has been
disinterred is a fine theatre, built only a short time before the eruption and
capable of accommodating 8000 persons. Part of the Forum, a colonnade, two small
temples, and a villa have also been recovered, besides ruins of baths. Many other
valuable remains of antiquity, such as busts, manuscripts, etc., have been found
in the ruins of this ancient city, and are deposited in the Museo Nazionale at
Naples.
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KYMI (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
Kume. A town of Campania, the most ancient of the Greek colonies
in Italy and Sicily. It was founded from Cyme in Aeolis, in conjunction with Chalcis
and Eretria in Euboea. Its foundation is placed in B.C. 1050, but the date must
be regarded as uncertain. It was situated on a steep hill of Mount Gaurus, a little
north of the promontory Misenum. It became in early times a great and flourishing
city; its commerce was extensive; its territory included a great part of the rich
Campanian plain; its population was at least 60,000; and its power is attested
by its colonies in Italy and Sicily--Puteoli, Palaeopolis (afterwards Neapolis),
Zancle (afterwards Messana). But it had powerful enemies to encounter in the Etruscans
and the Italian nations. It was also weakened by internal dissensions, and one
of its citizens, Aristodemus, made himself tyrant of the place. Its power became
so much reduced that it was only saved from the attacks of the Etruscans by the
assistance of Hiero, who annihilated the Etruscan fleet, 474. It maintained its
independence till 417, when it was taken by the Campanians and most of its inhabitants
sold as slaves. From this time Capua became the chief city of Campania; and although
Cumae was subsequently a Roman municipium and a colony, it continued to decline
in importance. At last the Acropolis was the only part of the town that remained,
and this was eventually destroyed by Narses in his wars with the Goths. Cumae
was celebrated as the residence of the earliest Sibyl, and as the place where
Tarquinius Superbus died.
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MISENO (Cape) CAMPANIA
Misenum, now Punta di Miseno. A promontory in Campania, south of Cumae, said to have derived its name from Misenus, the companion and trumpeter of Aeneas, who was drowned and buried here. The bay formed by this promontory was converted by Augustus into an excellent harbour, and was made the principal station of the Roman fleet on the Tyrrhenian Sea. A town sprang up around the harbour. Here was the villa of C. Marius, which afterwards passed into the hands of the emperor Tiberius, who died at this place ( Suet. Tib.72).
NEAPOLIS (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
Now Napoli (Naples); a city of Campania in Italy on the western
slope of Mount Vesuvius and the river Sebethus (Maddalena). It was founded about
B.C. 1056 by Aeolian Chalcidians of Cumae, on the site of an ancient place called
Parthenope (Parthenope), after the Siren of that name. Hence we find the town
called Parthenope by Vergil and Ovid. The year of the foundation of Neapolis is
not recorded. It was perhaps called the "New City," because regarded
simply as a new quarter of the neighbouring city of Cumae. When the town is first
mentioned in Roman history it consisted of two parts, divided from each other
by a wall, and called respectively Palaeopolis and Neapolis. This division probably
arose after the capture of Cumae by the Samnites, (about B.C. 300.) when a large
number of the Cumaeans took refuge in the city they had founded, whereupon the
old quarter was called Palaeopolis, and the new quarter, built to accommodate
the new inhabitants, was named Neapolis. There has been a dispute respecting the
site of these two quarters; but it is probable that Palaeopolis was situated on
the west side near the harbour, and Neapolis on the east side near the river Sebethus.
In B.C. 327 the town was taken by the Samnites, and in 290 it passed into the
hands of the Romans, who allowed it, however, to retain its Greek constitution.
At a later period it became a municipium, and finally a Roman colony. Under the
Romans the two quarters of the city were united, and the name of Palaeopolis disappeared.
It continued to be a prosperous and flourishing place till the time of the Empire;
and its beautiful scenery and the luxurious life of its Greek population made
it a favourite residence with many of the Romans. In the reign of Titus the city
was destroyed by an earthquake, but was rebuilt by this emperor in the Roman style.
The modern city of Naples does not stand on exactly the same
site as Neapolis. The ancient city extended farther east than the modern city,
since the former was situated on the Sebethus, whereas the latter does not reach
so far as the Fiume della Maddalena; but the modern city, on the other hand, extends
farther north and west than the ancient one, since the island of Megaris, on which
the Castel del Ovo now stands, was situated in ancient times between Pausilypum
and Neapolis. In the neighbourhood of Neapolis there were warm baths, the celebrated
villa of Lucullus, and the Villa Pausilypi or Pausilypum, bequeathed by Vedius
Pollio to Augustus, and which has given its name to the celebrated grotto of Posilippo
between Naples and Pozzuoli, at the entrance of which what is called the tomb
of Vergil is still shown. Augustus frequently visited the city, and Tiberius,
Claudius, Nero, Titus, and Hadrian favoured it in many ways. In 536 it was taken
by Belisarius, and in 543 by the Goths under Totila. Naples is a city of much
interest to archaeologists, both because of its proximity to Pompeii and Herculaneum,
and because of its remarkable collection of ancient works of art and industry
preserved in the Museo Nazionale.
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Now Napoli (Naples); a city of Campania in Italy on the western slope of Mount Vesuvius and the river Sebethus (Maddalena). It was founded about B.C. 1056 by Aeolian Chalcidians of Cumae, on the site of an ancient place called Parthenope (Parthenope), after the Siren of that name. Hence we find the town called Parthenope by Vergil and Ovid. The year of the foundation of Neapolis is not recorded. It was perhaps called the "New City," because regarded simply as a new quarter of the neighbouring city of Cumae. When the town is first mentioned in Roman history it consisted of two parts, divided from each other by a wall, and called respectively Palaeopolis and Neapolis. This division probably arose after the capture of Cumae by the Samnites, when a large number of the Cumaeans took refuge in the city they had founded, whereupon the old quarter was called Palaeopolis, and the new quarter, built to accommodate the new inhabitants, was named Neapolis. There has been a dispute respecting the site of these two quarters; but it is probable that Palaeopolis was situated on the west side near the harbour, and Neapolis on the east side near the river Sebethus. In B.C. 327 the town was taken by the Samnites, and in 290 it passed into the hands of the Romans, who allowed it, however, to retain its Greek constitution. At a later period it became a municipium, and finally a Roman colony. Under the Romans the two quarters of the city were united, and the name of Palaeopolis disappeared. It continued to be a prosperous and flourishing place till the time of the Empire; and its beautiful scenery and the luxurious life of its Greek population made it a favourite residence with many of the Romans. In the reign of Titus the city was destroyed by an earthquake, but was rebuilt by this emperor in the Roman style. The modern city of Naples does not stand on exactly the same site as Neapolis. The ancient city extended farther east than the modern city, since the former was situated on the Sebethus, whereas the latter does not reach so far as the Fiume della Maddalena; but the modern city, on the other hand, extends farther north and west than the ancient one, since the island of Megaris, on which the Castel del Ovo now stands, was situated in ancient times between Pausilypum and Neapolis. In the neighbourhood of Neapolis there were warm baths, the celebrated villa of Lucullus, and the Villa Pausilypi or Pausilypum, bequeathed by Vedius Pollio to Augustus, and which has given its name to the celebrated grotto of Posilippo between Naples and Pozzuoli, at the entrance of which what is called the tomb of Vergil is still shown. Augustus frequently visited the city, and Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Titus, and Hadrian favoured it in many ways. In 536 it was taken by Belisarius, and in 543 by the Goths under Totila. Naples is a city of much interest to archaeologists, both because of its proximity to Pompeii and Herculaneum, and because of its remarkable collection of ancient works of art and industry preserved in the Museo Nazionale.
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NEAPOLIS (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
DIKEARCHIA (Ancient city) ITALY
Twelve km from Naples about midway on the shore of a bay formed by the promontories
of Mons Posilypus and Misenum. To the rear it is ringed by a series of volcanic
hills, and as far as Cumae the whole area was known as the campi phlegraei from
its sulphurous atmosphere, hot springs, and other volcanic phenomena. Settled
by Samian refugees ca. 520 B.C. and politically dependent upon Cumae, it was an
outpost against Neapolis until conquered by the Samnites in 421. There is little
literary or archaeological evidence until ca. 334 B.C. when much of Campania came
under Rome. In 215 B.C. Puteoli successfully resisted Hannibal; in 199 it received
a Roman customs station and a maritime colony in 194. By this time its proximity
to the Via Appia at Capua had made it a port preferable to Naples. Sulla or Augustus
may have conferred further colonial status; Nero and Vespasian certainly did,
and the latter enlarged the city's territory from ca. 10 sq. km of coastline to
include a substantial part of the agricultural ager Campanus.
Puteoli's attraction for upper-class Romans and its location only
5 km from Baiae's amenities must have influenced the city's cultural life, but
its great fame and prosperity were based on its importance as a port of Rome,
especially from the East and especially after Delos became a free port in 166
B.C. Even after Claudius installed the port of Ostia, its prosperity continued
to such an extent that Nero undertook to link it with the Tiber by canal. Although
by comparison Puteoli declined from the 2d c. onward, it nevertheless remained
important until it was abandoned in the 6th c. The city's population, estimated
to be nearly 65,000, was commercial and highly cosmopolitan, as is reflected by
oriental cults such as Sarapis (105 B.C.), Kybele, Jupiter Dolichenos, Bellona,
Dusares, I.O.M. Heliopolitanus, Judaism and pre-Pauline Christianity (but not
Mithraism), as well as by the usual Graeco-Roman and the imperial worship. Puteoli
was likewise a gateway for Alexandrian artistry and artisanship, while its material
imports were as varied as the world's products, especially eastern grain bound
for the capital.
Return cargoes from Puteoli included oil, wine, and probably Republican
black "Campanian" pottery; also the locally made and widely distributed
glass and early imperial terra sigillata.
The most conspicuous ancient monuments are reproduced and named on
Late Classical globular glass vases from Piombino (now in the Corning Museum of
Glass, NY), Odemira (Portugal), Ampurias, Populonia, and one now in Prague, and
in Bellori's engraving of a wall painting now destroyed; interpretation of these
illustrations and inscriptions is difficult and often conjectural. The city was
eventually plundered to provide building materials for the cathedrals of Salerno
and Pisa. Puteoli naturally divides into a lower town, an upper town, and the
environs. Since antiquity parts of the lower town have sunk ca. 8 m and risen
again through bradyseism; high water has been marked by marine borers attacking
the three columns standing since antiquity in the macellum. Since the 18th c.
a new cycle of subsidence has progressed at about 2 cm annually.
The great macellum, formerly called the Temple or Baths (?) of Sarapis
from a statue found there in 1750, consisted of a large rectangular courtyard
(ca. 38 x 36 m), now submerged, surrounded by a portico into which shops on E
and W opened, or onto the streets outside; the inner oriented shops were faced
and paved with marble while the others were merely stuccoed. Stairs led to an
upper story. The grand entrance, flanked by further shops or offices, was in the
center of the S side; opposite it on the N was a large apse with capacious latrines
in the courtyard's NE and NW corners. At some later time the courtyard was embellished
by a circular colonnade of 16 African marble columns on a podium (18.2 m diam.);
statues and putealia were in the intercolumniations, a fountain was at the center,
and the whole structure was either roofed or hypethral. The entire macellum was
surrounded by an even larger one-story enclosure of additional shops facing inward,
and the whole must have been a spectacular unit worthy of the importance of the
city it served.
Of the port little is now accessible. Ruins of the famous Augustan
opus pilarum, a breakwater (15-16 m x 372 m), carried on 15 enormous masonry piers,
with at least one triumphal arch, columns topped by statues, a lighthouse, and
an architectural ship's prow at the end, are embedded in the modern solid breakwater.
The colonnaded quay (ripa) and some docks are now below sea level.
The Temple of Augustus, contributed cum ornamentis by a local admirer,
was situated on a low (36 m) acropolis. It was largely destroyed by the renovations
of the present Cathedral, but some columns, an architrave, and inscriptions remain.
In 1964 it was discovered to have encased the remains of a structure reusing late
5th c. Greek blocks, and of a Samnite or Italic temple with handsome base moldings.
Other monuments of the lower town, conspicuous enough for identification on the
glass vases and engraving mentioned above, have disappeared.
The upper town was residential and recreational. An outstanding discovery
was the small Augustan amphitheater with axes of 130 and 95 m under the new Rome-Naples
express railway line; it apparently lacked the subterranean chambers necessary
for venationes. These and other improvements were supplied in the great Flavian
amphitheater (149 x 116 m) nearby, which the Puteolans built at their own expense
in the principate of their benefactor Vespasian. Accommodating 40-60,000 spectators,
it was the third largest in Italy after those at Rome and Capua. Beasts and machinery
went underground on ramps along the long axis reaching 6.7 m down to two subterranean
levels of passageways and 80 cages; as needed, animals were returned to the arena
on elevators through rectangular openings, in an ellipse paralleling the podium
of the cavea and through other shafts. Cisterns and fountains were for decoration,
not naumachiae. An elaborate sewer system concentrated all surface drainage under
the arena.
The upper town also included the Baths of Trajan or Janus, which may
be the same as the so-called Temple of Neptune or of Diana, a solarium portico,
a circus, and several great cisterns served by a Republican aqueduct from the
N and, from the E, by a longer one attributed to Agrippa.
In the environs, Puteolan opulence is evident in the magnificence
of the columbaria, hypogea, and mausolea along the Via Consularis Capuam Puteolis
(Via Campana) extending for ca. 2 km as far as S. Vito, especially that part closest
to the city gate (Via Celle). Some are decorated with stucco or mosaics, or are
otherwise impressively preserved, and in Christian times some were reused for
inhumations. Similar but less ostentatious funerary monuments also flanked the
ancient road to Naples.
The Via Campana was the only road connecting the coastal cities with
the hinterland and the Via Appia until construction of the Via Domitiana linking
Rome with Puteoli, a less expensive substitute for Nero's projected canal. Under
Augustus the pre-Sullan road to Naples was shortened by the crypta Neapolitana;
Nerva and Trajan improved this artery and made it a continuation of the Domitiana,
and the latter placed a triumphal arch over it.
There is a museum at Pozzuoli but the statues, coins, pottery, and
other antiquities from the city are mostly distributed among museums in various
countries and at Naples.
H. Comfort, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Dec 2005 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 5 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
IRAKLIO (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
The ancient city, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, lies
a short distance from the sea, not far from Neapolis (Naples) and from Pompeii.
The earliest ancient writer to mention the city is Theophrastos (6th c. B.C.).
The Roman historian Sisenna in the 1st c. B.C. described Herculaneum
as an inhabited center located in an elevated position near the sea between two
watercourses. Archaeological excavation substantially confirms the description,
even though the site underwent several transformations during the eruption of
A.D. 79.
Legend says that the city was founded by Herakles, and it is probable
that the origins of Herculaneum go back to the remote past. According to Strabo
the city was inhabited by Oscans, Tyrrhenians, and Pelasgians. We may presume
that in the archaic and Classical ages the city, like nearby Pompeii, greatly
increased in population owing to an influx both from the Greek colonies in the
area, especially from Cumae, and from Etruscan Capua. Toward the end of the 5th
c. B.C. when Campania was occupied by the Samnites, Herculaneum also became Samnite
and afterwards was probably involved in the wars between the Samnites and the
Romans. Later the city participated in the social war. It was conquered by T.
Didius, legate of Sulla, and in 89 B.C. became a Roman municipium. Herculaneum
suffered serious damage in the earthquake of A.D. 62; and soon thereafter, like
Pompeii, Stabiae, and Oplontis, was a victim of the Vesuvian eruption of A.D.
79. It is still not known whether Christianity spread to Herculaneum: a mark on
the wall plaster in the Casa del Bicentenaio has sometimes been interpreted as
the outline of a Christian cross.
The eruption of Vesuvius inundated the city with a torrent of mud,
which covered it completely and solidified into a compact layer with a consistency
similar to that of tufa. The average ground level was raised by ca. 15 m. While
the buildings were badly damaged, organic material, especially wood, was preserved
so that the excavations at Herculaneum are unique in this respect.
Casual discoveries that served to fix the site of the ancient city
were made at the beginning of the 18th c., after which more or less systematic
excavation began. In the first phase of research ancient Herculaneum was explored
by means of digging wells and underground tunnels and carrying to the surface
paintings, mosaics, sculpture, and various other objects that were collected in
a Herculanean Museum prepared in the royal palace in nearby Portici. At the same
time, the excavators succeeded in delineating the plan of the city and of its
principal buildings. The discoveries aroused intense interest for their exceptional
historic, antiquarian, and artistic value.
In the following century the research was resumed, adopting more up-to-date
and scientific criteria. With an open excavation and with the attentive recovery
of all the buried elements, the excavations are continuing at present, employing
methods always more modern and precise.
The approximate plan of Herculaneum is known from what has been brought
to light, which is about a quarter of the urban area, and from the outlines traced
by the excavators in the Bourbon age. The city, which must have been enclosed
by walls for at least a part of its circumference, developed over an area of ca.
370 by 320 m and was regular in plan. Streets meet at right angles (decumani in
an E-W direction and cardines leading N-S) forming insulae that contain one or
more buildings. Usually the houses are entered from the cardines. In the last
period of the city's life it developed further. On the S section of the enclosing
wall, which by then was no longer functional or necessary after the peace established
by Augustus, were built luxurious and panoramic houses. Outside the walls a sacred
area was constructed, as well as a large bath. In addition, the countryside around
the city must have become populated by suburban and rural villas. In one of these,
the famous Villa of the Pisoni, was found a library and a collection of sculpture.
The center of the city's life is constituted by the decumanus maximus,
a wide street closed to vehicular traffic, from which there is access to many
public buildings. Thus it appears that the decumanus had the function that in
other cities is usually served by a forum. On the N side of the decumanus rose
a large public building, probably the basilica, which is known only through the
accounts and drawings made at the time of the Bourbon excavations. Several remains
of its pictorial decoration are in the National Museum in Naples.
Recent excavations have revealed that in front of this building extended
a portico faced with marble and with stucco. At the extremities of the portico
arose two foursided arches with decorations in stucco and honorific bronze statues,
of which there remain the bases, and traces of the statues themselves. In the
part excavated to the N of the decumanus there extends another portico with shops
and with at least two upper stories. To the E of the street is a palaestra, with
rooms on several levels and with a large peristyle, at the center of which is
a large pool. The pool was fed by a bronze fountain that represents the Lernaian
Hydra twisted around the trunk of a tree, evidently an allusion to Herakles, and
thus to the name of the city. To the S of the decumanus is a chapel dedicated
to Herakles, which perhaps also fulfilled the functions of the seat of civic administration;
and another monumental building of unknown use, only partly excavated.
The theater is in the NW sector of the inhabited area. Beside it were
other public buildings. Along the decumanus inferior are the baths, of the usual
type, with separate sections for men and women. Outside the S wall of the city
is a sacred area and another large bath that is notable for the development of
its plan and for its decorations in stucco and marble. Here the division into
two sections does not exist; the building seems to date to the last years of the
city.
The private dwellings of Herculaneum vary widely in plan. There is
a rare example of a house containing small rental apartments, each independent
and with a small central courtyard. The Casa del bel cortile has a central courtyard
from which a flight of steps leads to the upper stories.
There are notable examples of houses built around an atrium, Italic
in type, several of which go back to relatively ancient times. They include the
Casa sannitica with beautiful decoration in the first style, the Casa del tramezzo
di legno and the Casa di Neptuno and the Casa di Anfitrite. Other houses recall
the Italic scheme but are amplified in plan. The villas built along the S edge
of the city are distinctive in plan. In these houses the traditional plan is modified.
An axial arrangement is abandoned, and while the typical rooms such as the atrium
are oriented by the fact of their facing the cardines; the peristyles, the gardens,
the salons and the other annexes are oriented toward the S, in such a way as to
exploit the panoramic position of the site with its view toward the sea. To the
houses are annexed the shops, which reveal the various aspects of everyday life
of Herculaneum and of its socio-economic environment. Worthy of mention is a shop
on the cardo IV, where is preserved the wooden counter with the amphorae of the
wine merchant in position on it, and the large containers of cereal grains. Also
preserved are some shops on the decumanus maximus, one of which has a painted
sign, and another of which must have belonged to a metal worker. In another shop
on the decumanus maximus has been found a group of glass objects still enclosed
in their wrappings. Very often the front of the insulae was preceded by a portico,
and the houses reveal in many cases the presence of one or even two upper stories.
It is not easy to calculate the population of Herculaneum, but possibly it had
ca. 5000 inhabitants.
A short distance from the city is the grandiose and celebrated Villa
dei Papiri (or dei Pisoni). Constructed in the middle of the 1st c. B.C., it was
undergoing renovation at the time of the catastrophe in A.D. 79. The villa belonged,
according to many scholars, to L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the father-in-law
of Julius Caesar and a politician and patron of the arts. In the villa was found
a remarkable library, largely of Epicurean philosophy that appears to be the work
of the philosopher Philodemos; and a notable collection of sculpture that constitutes
the only surviving example of a private collection in antiquity. It contains works
in marble and in bronze in the Hellenistic and neoclassical manner, and a series
of portraits of philosophers, Hellenistic princes, and orators.
In public buildings and houses numerous sculpted works have also been
found, for the most part portraits of emperors and of citizens of Herculaneum,
and even an Egyptian statue. Painting in Herculaneum is in the Pompeian style
but often more finely executed and more tastefully composed. Excellent taste is
also shown in domestic furnishings such as vessels of bronze or terracotta, votive
statuettes, lamps, etc.
The works of art and the furnishings found at Herculaneum were collected
in the Herculanean Museum at Portici and then transported to Naples at the end
of the 18th c. when the great National Museum was created. A few pieces found
their way abroad during the Bourbon period. A large proportion of the wall paintings
and some examples of domestic furnishings are preserved in situ.
A. De Franciscis, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
KYMI (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
A city in Phlegraean Fields inside Cape Misenum on the Bay of Naples.
This area and its original Oscan inhabitants were known to Mycenaean explorers
of the 12th c. B.C., but the city was actually founded ca. 750 B.C. by colonists
from Chalkis, Eretria, and the island of Pithekusai (Ischia). The site included
a strong acropolis, fertile hinterland, and an attractive harbor, now nonexistent.
From 700 to 500 B.C. it was a prosperous and important disseminator of Greek culture
in the West through the Chalkidian alphabet, Greek cults, and several important
colonies of its own. The earliest historic Cumaean, Anistodemos, repulsed an Etruscan
attack in 524 B.C. and shared a leading role with the Latins and Romans in defeating
the Etruscans again at Aricia ca. 505; in 474 the Cumaean and Syracusan fleets
combined to crush Etruscan power in Campania. But about a half century later Cumae
was conquered by the Samnites and became Oscan until 180 B.C. Samnites were not
maritime-minded and did not really maintain the harbor. However, after Hannibal's
failure to establish outlets to the sea at Neapolis and Puteoli, in 215 B.C. Cumae
was his third--and equally unsuccessful--choice. Already a civitas sine suffragio
(338 B.C.) Cumae was now granted municipal citizenship with Latin as the official
language, and it became a municipium at the end of the Republic. In 37-36 Agrippa
undertook a massive reorganization of the harbor facilities, adapting the lakes
Lucrinus and Avernus on the bay side into Portus Julius for the construction of
a fleet and the training of personnel against Sextus Pompey (battles of Mylae
and Naulochos, 36 B.C.) and, on the Cumaean side, the construction of a whole
new Roman port for the unloading of supplies, and two long tunnels for communication
between the sea and the lakes (see below). After this great ad hoc achievement
Cumae once more silted up into maritime insignificance, though Symmachos sailed
from there to Formia in A.D. 383.
Cumae was most famous for its oracular Sibyl, just as her grotto is
now its most spectacular monument. As shown by an inscribed bronze disk, she was
giving, and declining to elucidate, responses by the middle or the late 7th c.
B.C., originally for a chthonic Hera and only later for Apollo, and her famous
bargaining with Tarquinius Priscus (regn. ca. 616-579) for the Sibylline Books
was about contemporary. Vergil's poetic but surprisingly accurate description
of her antrum (A en. 6.9-155 for the whole incident) is clearly based on autopsy.
Though restored by Augustus, the Sibyl's official cult lapsed within the next
century.
The site of the Sibyl's grotto was discovered in 1932, a trapezoidal
gallery (131.5 x 2.4 m and an average height of 5 m) cut N-S into a solid tufa
ridge below the acropolis, overlooking the sea through six similar trapezoidal
bays, with a total of nine doorways (not all now documented) and, cut back into
the rock on the left (E) side, three ceremonial baths later converted into cisterns;
note the repetition of triads and the Sibyl's relation to Hekate (Trivia). The
splendid archaic Greek stone-cutting is attributable to the 5th c. B.C. and reminiscent
of Mycenaean and Etruscan dromoi. At the extreme (S) end is an arched chamber,
the inmost adyton wherein Aeneas received oral instructions from the frenzied
priestess; a vaulted chamber to the E, perhaps the Sibyl's personal apartment,
and a similar but smaller W chamber, probably for light and ventilation, open
to left and right of the adyton. This last complex, with vertical walls and doorposts
supporting semicircular arches, is a 4th-3d c. addition or alteration to the original
gallery. Under the early Empire the whole floor was lowered 1.5 m to convert the
entire grotto into a cistern; still later, parts were used for Christian inhumation.
The entrance to the Sibyl's grotto was part of an architectural unit
including steps leading up to the Temple of Apollo (see below) and a ramp leading
downward to the entrance of the so-called Cumaean Roman crypt, a long underground
E-W tunnel passing under the acropolis. The operations of Narses against the Goths
(A.D. 560), landslides, and quarrying have destroyed this impressive facade, but
the crypt itself is undoubtedly attributable to Cocceius, the Augustan architect
who also built the very similar crypt of Cocceius under Monte Grillo (see below)
and the crypta Neapolitana tunnel between Puteoli and Neapolis. For 26 m the Cumaean
crypt is barrel-vaulted 5 m high and then opens into an enormous Great Hall or
"vestibule" 23 m high with revetment of tufa blocks and with four niches
for large statues; lighting for these and the whole crypt, of which the remainder
was a normal tunnel, was supplied by vertical or oblique light-shafts down through
the rock. Toward the E end enormous rock-cut storerooms and cisterns open on one
side. Like the Sibyl's grotto, this crypt was eventually used for Christian burials.
Even more impressive is the so-called crypt of Cocceius itself which,
passing for ca. 1 km under Monte Grillo, was wide enough for loaded wagons to
pass and which, after an open interval from the previous crypt, continued the
underground water-level supply route from Cumae to Agrippa's Lake Avernus base.
It was partly barrel-vaulted with neat blocks; the remainder was cut through unadorned
tufa. Like the other crypt it was lighted by vertical and oblique light-wells
of which the deepest is 30 m. As a further tour de force, Cocceius included an
aqueduct along its N side, with its own niches, ventilation shafts, and wells.
But it and the Cumaean crypt were strictly military in purpose and were not properly
maintained thereafter until the Bourbons cleared it for land reclamation purposes.
It can still be traversed despite ruts and water due to bradyseism and deforestation.-
It was undoubtedly Cocceius' masterpiece.
Not all of the crypt of Cocceius and the mountain under which it passes
is strictly Cumaean, but consideration of Cumae cannot ignore Domitian's cut through
the crest of Monte Grillo and his filling the consequent gash with the high narrow
Arco Felice of brick, not an aqueduct but apparently simply a high-level bridge
from one side of the cut to the other.
The precise areas of the Greek, Samnite, and Roman territory of Cumae
varied from time to time and are not entirely clear, but at least the acropolis
was always the obvious center. It was originally part of a crater; much of it
consists of varying qualities of tufa. Easiest access was from the S where the
harbor and principal city lay with appropriate gates, but on the remaining sides
it was impregnable. In Greek times it was fortified with walls of which some fine
stretches remain visible, but in Roman times it was extensively occupied by private
dwellings which have virtually eradicated structures (portico, cistern), but two
temples remain identifiable.
The lower of these, epigraphically identified as the Temple of Apollo,
built upon a still earlier sanctuary, exists only in ground plan (34.6 x 18.3
m). It was oriented N-S; in Augustan times the Cumaean Apollo received a new and
presumably more elaborate E-W temple; in the 6th-7th c. this was converted into
a Christian basilica, once more N-S. The Greek phase of the upper so-called Temple
of Jupiter is E-W but even less recognizable than that of Apollo, though its dimensions
were greater (at least 39.6 x 24.6 m). The Tiberio-Claudian phase is of characteristic
reticulate masonry and is generally recognizable in its unusual plan, which was
adapted to a Christian basilica in the 5th-6th c., one of the earliest such structures
in Campania.
In the lower town were Temples of Jupiter Flazzus (later the Capitolium)
and of Divus Vespasianus used for a committee meeting in A.D. 289, a forum (ca.
120 x 50 m) with long porticos, largely unexplored, and two 2d c. bathing establishments.
At the S end of the city was an amphitheater with a major axis of 90 m, of which
only parts of the outer shell remain above ground. Statius, who often refers to
Cumae, refers to quieta Cyme (Silv. 4.3.65) and Juvenal calls it vacuae (3.2),
but this was doubtless in contrast to Rome and busy Puteoli. Under the late Republic
and early Empire Cumae was a favorite resort of upper-class Romans, vying with
Puteoli and Baiae.
A large and ill-defined necropolis surrounds the city, especially
to the NE where extensive plundering during the 19th c., as well as responsible
excavation during the 20th c., has revealed interments of all periods including
pre-Hellenic; some tombs are painted. A tholos tomb reflecting Mycenaean tradition
and a mass grave of headless skeletons are of especial interest.
Most of the finds from Cumae, including a fine marble copy of Cresilas'
Diomedes, are in the Naples Museum.
H. Comfort, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
NEAPOLIS (Ancient city) CAMPANIA
On the W coast of Italy some 241 km SE of Rome, the city stands overlooking
the Tyrrhenian sea in the N part of the Gulf of Naples. To the E lies the silhouette
of Mt. Vesuvius, and to the W stretches a fertile area known to the ancients as
the Phlegraean Fields because of the mineral springs, sulphur mines, and small
craters it contains. To the SW is the Posillipo (the ancient Mons Pausilypos),
a large hill which ends in a promontory and separates the Gulf of Naples from
the Gulf of Pozzuoli.
Neapolis was founded ca. 650 B.C. from Cumae. Ancient tradition records
that it had originally been named after the siren Parthenope, who had been washed
ashore on the site after failing to capture Odysseus (Sil. Pun. 12.33-36). The
early city, which was called Palae(o)polis, developed in the SW along the modern
harbor area and included Pizzofalcone and Megaris (the Castel dell'Ovo), a small
island in the harbor. Megaris itself may have been the site of a still older Rhodian
trading colony (Strab. 14.2.10). Owing to the influx of Campanian immigrants,
the town began to develop to the NE along a Hippodamian grid plan. This new extension
was called Neapolis, while Palae(o)polis became a suburb. Incited to a war with
Rome by the Greek elements, the city was captured in 326 B.C. by the proconsul
Quintus Publilius Philo (Liv. 8.22.9), and the suburb ceased to exist. Neapolis
then became a favored ally of the Romans; it repulsed Pyrrhos, contributed naval
support during the First Punic War, and withstood the attacks of Hannibal. Even
though it suffered the loss of its fleet and a massacre of its inhabitants in
82 B.C. during the Civil War (App. BCiv. 1.89), it became a flourishing municipium
and enjoyed the favors of the Julio-Claudian emperors. Subsequently it was damaged
by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
Remains of both the Greek and the Roman cities are scarce since the
modern town has been built on top. Stretches of the Greek city walls have been
found in various locations, and it has been possible to reconstruct the entire
ring of fortifications. In the N the walls stretch from S. Maria di Constantinopoli
to SS. Apostoli. Some blocks were found when the Ospedale degli Incurabili at
the Piazza Cavour was demolished. On the E they run along the course of the Via
Carbonara, by the Castel Capuano, and down the Via Maddalena to the church of
S. Agostino alla Zecca. In the area of the former convent of the Maddalena have
come to light the remains of a tower measuring 10.8 m on each face with traces
of rebuilding associated with the siege by Belisarius in A.D. 536. In the S they
go from S. Agostino, by the University, and finally reach S. Maria la Nuova. Under
the Corso Umberto I, in the stretch between the Via Seggio del Popolo and the
Via Pietro Colletta, large portions have appeared, dating from the 5th c. B.C.
to the Hellenistic period. On the W side, sections were uncovered at the Piazza
Bellini. Outside the ring of fortifications, in the vicinity of the Via S. Giacomo,
a wall, constructed in blocks of tufa, has been discovered. It dates to the 6th
c. B.C. and probably belongs to the older city of Palae(o)polis.
It is also possible to reconstruct some of the street system of Neapolis,
since it is likely that many modern streets run over their ancient counterparts.
Three main E x W decumani can be distinguished: the Via S. Biagio dei Librai,
the Via Tribunali, and the Via Anticaglia. These were crossed at right angles
by about 20 narrower N x S cardines having an average width of 4 m and forming
some 100 house blocks. A stretch of one of these cardines has been located under
the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore. In the Via del Duomo have been found the foundations
of a small sacred edifice dating to the 5th c. B.C. and rebuilt completely in
the 1st c. of our era. Parts of Greek houses have been uncovered on the Via del
Duomo and on the Via Nib in the W part of the town. Graves of the Greek period
are scattered throughout the city. In the region of Pizzofalcone on the Via Nicotera,
part of a necropolis, belonging to the original city of Palae(o)polis, has come
to light with pottery dating from the 7th and 6th c. B.C. A second early cemetery
lay in the spot now occupied by the Piazza Capuana.
Evidence for the Roman buildings of Neapolis is more abundant. The
church of S. Paolo Maggiore contains building materials from an earlier temple,
identified by means of an inscription as sacred to the Dioscuri and of the time
of Tiberius, but standing on the site of an older sanctuary. The temple itself
was Corinthian hexastyle. Its front faced S and looked over the decumanus maximus
(Via Tribunali). On the Via Anticaglia, between the Via S. Paolo and the Vico
Giganti, are the remains of a theater, dating to the early empire. The cavea faces
S towards the harbor and has a diameter of some 102 m. Beneath the level of the
Early Christian basilica under San Lorenzo Maggiore have been uncovered the foundations
of a large public building of the 1st c. A.D., perhaps the aerarium of the city.
In various locations there are remnants of baths. Roman houses appear at the NE
end of the Corso Umberto I, near the section of wall found there, and in the Via
del Duomo. The cryptoporticus of a villa belonging to the 1st c. A.D. has emerged
in the vicinity of the Via S. Giacomo. The Castel dell'Ovo can be identified with
the site of Lucullus' villa and famous fish ponds (Plin. HN 9.170).
The most direct route from Neapolis to Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli) was
along a coast road named the Via Puteolana. This road passed through the Posillipo
hills by means of a tunnel, the Crypta Neapolitana, located in the region of Mergellina.
The crypta, built by Augustus' architect Cocceius but many times restored and
remodeled, now measures 700 m in length. A second ancient tunnel, now called the
Grotta di Seiano, was built at the extreme tip of the Posillipo promontory. It
led from the villa of Vedius Pollio (later given to Augustus) to the Puteoli road
and is a little larger than the crypta. On the Posillipo itself are the remains
of a small Augustan odeum once connected with a private villa, perhaps Pollio's.
Near the entrance to the crypta is a sepulcher identified by some as the tomb
of Virgil, which according to Donatus (Vita Virg. 36) was located before the second
milestone on the Via Puteolana. Others argue that the present tomb is too far
away and that the second milestone, calculated from the Porta Puteolana, would
lie on the modern Riviera di Chiaia; furthermore, they assert that the present
tomb resembles a family columbarium rather than a poet's sepulcher. The grave,
belonging to the Augustan period, is in the form of a columbarium, built in the
opus caementicium technique. It is circular and stands on a square podium; inside
are ten niches (loculi) for cinerary urns.
The Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples off the Piazza Cavour is
one of the finest in Italy and contains extensive collections of mosaics, paintings,
and sculpture.
W.D.E. Coulson, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
VAIE (Ancient city) ITALY
A city belonging in antiquity to Cumae and situated 4 km from it on
the Tyrrhenian Sea. Despite its proximity Baiae contrasts with Cumae significantly.
it has no specific and defensible citadel but was built on a long hillside sloping
down to the shore, "a subsidiary crater in the wall of Avernus." Only
in 178 B.C. were its thermal springs (aquae Cumanae) first mentioned; and not
until a century later, perhaps as a by-product of the social war or the Sullan
period, did it become the Roman fashionable resort par excellence. From this time
until at least Alexander Severus its landholders were Roman aristocracy, especially
after a large part of the town became imperial property under Augustus and his
successors. Like Puteoli, it was and is far more subject to bradyseism; it is
estimated that Roman Baiae extended more than 100 m beyond the present shore.
Except for the controversial interpretation of the Great Antrum, it had no special
cult significance, aiA no genuine temples have been identified. It had no amphitheater;
presumably those at Cumae and especially Puteoli sufficed. it was uniquely famous
among poets and vacationers for its natural loveliness and charm and for its hot
and curative mineral springs which supplied the baths and, above all, for its
licentious living at all periods. Cicero makes it synonymous with libidines, amores,
adulteria, actae, convivia, commissationes, cantus, symphoniae, navigia (Cael.
15.35), and Seneca gives a critical but lively account of its life and of Vatia's
nearby villa (Ep. 51.55); (for a more rural estate, cf. Martial 3.58). Cumae inspired
no souvenir glass vases, but the principal monuments of Baiae are illustrated
and identified on a 4th c. glass bottle like those of Puteoli now in the Museo
Borgio of the Propaganda Fide, and on the famous Piombino/Populonia glass now
at the Corning Museum, which includes scenes of both Baiae and Puteoli. The former
bottle shows a pharos, the stagnu (in) Neronis (Nero's fishing lake), a silva
and the place-name Baiae; the latter includes the palatiu(m); and both show the
famous ostriaria (sic) and a second stagnu(m). According to A. De Franciscis the
ruins probably represent an imperial Palatium (cited in the literary and epigraphical
sources) occupying the slope of the hillside, extending upward as far as the ridge,
and in the arrangement of its various parts, so adapted to the lay of the land
as to have the advantage of the panoramic view. Established on an area where there
were already constructions, the building of the complex would have developed over
the course of several centuries, its principal monuments originating in the age
of Augustus, in the middle of the 2d c., and at the beginning of the 3d c. in
the various elements on the several levels Professor de Franciscis identifies
a vast porticoed courtyard, terraces, grandiose rooms, salons and minor rooms
of various dimensions with several sections for receiving delegations, others
for lodging, and a vast sector of baths. The coastline of the principal archaeological
area runs almost directly N-S with the following principal monuments:
1) The so-called Temple of Diana is a domed structure externally octagonal
and internally circular (29.5 m diam.), half preserved, together with its appendages,
on the side supported by the hill. it is probably Hadrianic, and has a slightly
elliptical profile; possibly it was a casino.
2) South of the railroad, and likewise supported by the hill, the
so-called Temple of Mercury is a great round vaulted building (21.5 m diam.),
with a circular opening at the top. This vaulted dome, built up over concentric
contracting levels of temporary wooden falsework, is a kind of opus incertum of
tufa set in cement with a predominance of wedge-shaped tufa blocks of which the
wider outward ends conform to the greater outside radius of the dome; toward the
center opening the thickness of the shell is 60 cm, increasing down to the junction
with the vertical walls. The whole is obviously reminiscent of the Pantheon at
Rome, and about half its size, but is assignable to the late Republic or earliest
years of Augustus by its fine and careful reticulate work to the exclusion of
brick. Cramp-holes on the interior indicate an ornamental marble veneer. Like
all the other bath constructions it had high windows for light and ventilation
and niches for statues and, in addition, ground-level extensions on a NW-SE axis
of which the NW, a kind of nymphaeum, connected with the aqueduct supplying water
and the other was perhaps for outflow. A small corridor at the rear exterior base
of the dome served both as a retaining wall and drainage channel for earth and
water descending from the hill, for maintenance, and as a platform for a small
staircase whereby the center opening and high windows could be covered in inclement
weather. From the main rotunda a passage leads to a later large rectangular tepidarium(?)
embellished with niches and an apse. Bradyseism, neglect, and the installation
of a vineyard over the vault had reduced the monument to near ruin when emergency
restoration was undertaken, though not thorough excavation, and the whole rotunda
was identified as a natatorium. Further excavations (1964-65) in this area have
shown dwelling and service quarters, including some late Flavian and Severan painted
decoration.
3) To the S and E of this complex a considerable lower area is still
unexcavated, but higher on the hill there are over 100 m of parallel N-S loggias,
a portico, and an ambulatio on different levels. From here the evening view down
the slope of fine buildings and across the bay to Vesuvius, with Sorrento on the
right, must have been magnificent.
4) The next considerable unit, excavated in 1951, is the charming
Acque della Rogna, so-called from its curative powers, or more elegantly the Terme
di Sosandra from a statue found in its upper part. it consists of three levels
set in the hill: first, a high residential quarter recently interpreted as a monastery;
then lower, a small exedra-and-nymphaeum with a round pool in an orchestra adaptable
for dramatic, oratorical, or musical events; and finally, 8 m still lower, a promenade
and lounging area surrounding a rectangular swimming pool (34.8 x 28.6 m). This
whole unit from top to bottom is bounded on N and S by grand staircases and ramps
ca. 60 m long.
5) The most southerly of the baths centered round the so-called Temple
of Venus now also confusingly but more accurately described as the Baths of Venus.
The area shows remains of Augustan construction, but the present spectacular structure
is Hadrianic. its lower story, the natatorium, is externally roughly square with
at least one highly complicated annex, and internally circular (26.3 m diam.)
with four large bays; its upper story is octagonal outside but the interior circle
continues with high windows.
A part of the same bathing establishment and several meters higher
than the so-called Temple lie the Baths of Venus across the modern strada provinciale,
excavated early in WW ii. These baths rise 5 or 6 stories against the hill; their
principal feature is a large apsed rectangular hall enclosing a bathing basin.
6) Still higher, at the 23 m level, is a Sacred Area, a complex of
buildings of several periods and the entrance to the spectacularly impressive
Great Antrum, which consists of a descending passage (0.5 x 2.5 m) cut straight
back into the rock for 124.5 m and continued by a complicated series of further
passages downward to a tunnel flooded by hot springs at about sea level, and upward
to an inner sanctuary. The whole unit extends ca. 350 m from the entrance.
The remainder of Baiae, both the seashore and the heights behind,
including Julius Caesar's magnificently located villa, has been archaeologically
wrecked and aesthetically ruined by the construction of Don Pedro de Toledo's
castle, installation of the modern port, pozzolana quarries, road building, etc.
Some serious underwater archaeology has been undertaken at Punta dell'Epitafflo
to the N and elsewhere, as well as less systematic raising of columns, statues,
etc. Some of these are now in the Naples Museum.
H. Comfort, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 34 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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