Baiae and the Bay of Naples, painted by J.M.W. Turner in 1823, well before modernization of the area obliterated most traces of its Roman past. Image: Wikicommons. There is nothing remotely Elysian ...

Baiae once served as the ultimate escape for Rome’s wealthiest citizens, a coastal retreat where politics faded into the background and pleasure took center stage. Set along the Bay of Naples, the ...

In its day, Baiae was a cloistered seaside getaway for Rome’s elite—and a debaucherous one at that. Home to a villa belonging to Julius Caesar as well as those of emperors Augustus, Nero, and Caligula ...

Today, a team of archaeologists and engineers are developing some surprising new technologies to protect the underwater site for future generations. “You’re sure I can cross?” I had to almost shout to ...

A certain class of people, through luck or cunning or inheritance or just plain smarts, accrue a massive amount of wealth and power, not necessarily in that order. But the work of plotting and ruling ...

Baiae was a city where Rome’s rich and powerful could play out their hedonistic fantasies. Pic: PBS PBS’s Secrets of the Dead: Nero’s Sunken City tonight follows archaeologists as they map the ruins ...

There were ponds for farming fish in Baiae so that the wealthy vacationers had a constant supply of their favorite fish. But not all the seafood could be farmed in ponds. Shellfish farming was an ...

Archaeologists believe that they may finally have found the long-lost baths that once belonged to the renowned Roman statesman and writer Cicero. The recently spotted thermal complex is part of the ...

Nero was a cruel, eccentric psychopath who persecuted Christians and, it’s said, burned Rome to the ground. Baiae was his escape where he could indulge in his sadistic fantasies. Nero spent a fortune ...