Agnano is a suburb of Napoli, Italy, situated southwest of the city in the Campi Flegrei region. It was popular among both ancient Greeks and Romans and was famed for its hot sulphurous springs.
Agnano is a suburb of Napoli, Italy, situated southwest of the city in the Campi Flegrei region. It was popular among both ancient Greeks and Romans and was famed for its hot sulphurous springs.
Lake Agnano formed in the Middle Ages in the volcanic crater but was drained in 1870 to increase arable land and reduce the habitat of the Anopheles mosquito, which carries the malaria parasite. The crater is now home to the Agnano hippodrome and the town.
After World War II, Agnano was home to the U.S. Naval Support Activity consisting of the U.S. Naval Hospital, administrative offices, barracks, and two Department of Defense Education Activity schools: Naples Elementary School and Naples American High School.
The ruins of ancient Greek thermal baths from the 4th-rd c. BC are visible in the former mud pit of the new baths. Most of the existing structures date from the Roman period of the 1st-2nd century AD and are to the west of the main road.
The Grotto of the Dog near the baths is an ancient cave which fills with volcanic carbon dioxide and has killed animals that entered it.
The remains are located in the grounds of the modern spa and in the adjacent CIM Military Equestrian Centre. The baths area is very extensive and occupies the entire northern side of the ridge on several terraces. The complex was investigated towards the end of the 1800s and systematically in 1911 by V. Macchioro. [1] The baths were probably part of a mansio, or station, beside the road from Neapolis and Puteoli. At present parts of the main terrace, the baths and the curvilinear wall supporting an upper terrace are clearly visible.
The baths were fed by the copious local hot springs which still flow. For its cold water supply system, a series of cisterns communicating with each other are close to the curvilinear wall. After the Aqua Augusta (Serino aqueduct) was built in the late 1st c. BC, passing along the rim of the crater just above the baths, a secondary conduit branched off it to the baths through a 70 m-long tunnel dug into the mountain and which poured the water into two basins. From here the water reached the individual rooms by means of a system of tubs, pipes and taps, the main conduit of which ran under the floor of the frigidarium. [2]
The baths included an apodyterium, frigidarium, and several warm rooms: (tepidaria, caldaria and laconica). [3]
The laconicum was heated through openings both in the walls and from under the floor. As prescribed by Vitruvius, the bathing route involved the passage from the laconicum to the tepidarium so as to allow, after sweating, the use of the tepid bath. This room, equipped with a basin, also allowed the passage from the more heated rooms to the frigidarium . The calidarium is rectangular in shape with one of the short sides having an apse and is heated by a praefurnium or furnace so as to reach a higher temperature.
Magnificent mosaics and sculptures were discovered here. [4] [5] [6]
A group of statues of muses, including the famous Frankfurt Urania, was discovered in the Roman baths and is now in the Liebieghaus museum. [7] The figures, dating from 120-100BC, had been removed from their original location in ancient times and it is believed that they were originally from Delos near the temple of Apollo. The fine execution of the robes is especially skillful and their arrangement and textures emphasise the figures’ beautiful bodies. Although the condition of the group is somewhat fragmentary, the style is very naturalistic.
Four sculptures were also found in the frigidarium during the first excavations before 1911: Venus marina, armed Aphrodite, Hermes with child Dionysus, and Ganymede, now in the Naples museum datable to the first half of the 2nd century AD.
In ancient Rome, thermae and balneae were facilities for bathing. Thermae usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while balneae were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.
The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy, were the city's second largest Roman public baths, or thermae, after the Baths of Diocletian. The baths were likely built between AD 212 and 216/217, during the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla. They were in operation until the 530s and then fell into disuse and ruin.
Baiae was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples and now in the comune of Bacoli. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic, when it was reckoned as superior to Capri, Pompeii, and Herculaneum by wealthy Romans, who built villas here from 100 BC. Ancient authors attest that many emperors built in Baia, almost in competition with their predecessors and they and their courts often stayed there. It was notorious for its hedonistic offerings and the attendant rumours of corruption and scandal.
The Baths of Diocletian were public baths in ancient Rome. Named after emperor Diocletian and built from AD 298 to 306, they were the largest of the imperial baths. The project was originally commissioned by Maximian upon his return to Rome in the autumn of 298 and was continued after his and Diocletian's abdication under Constantius, father of Constantine.
The Baths of Titus or Thermae Titi were public baths (Thermae) built in 81 AD at Rome, by Roman emperor Titus. The baths sat at the base of the Esquiline Hill, an area of parkland and luxury estates which had been taken over by Nero for his Golden House or Domus Aurea. Titus' baths were built in haste, possibly by converting an existing or partly built bathing complex belonging to the reviled Domus Aurea. They were not particularly extensive, and the much larger Baths of Trajan were built immediately adjacent to them at the start of the next century.
Lago di Agnano or Lake Agnano was a circular lake, some 6½ km in circumference, which occupied the crater of the extinct volcano of Agnano 8 km west of Naples, Italy. It was apparently not formed until the Middle Ages, as it is not mentioned by ancient writers; it was drained in 1870.
The tepidarium was the warm (tepidus) bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat, which directly affects the human body from the walls and floor.
The Baths of Trajan were a massive thermae, a bathing and leisure complex, built in ancient Rome and dedicated under Trajan during the kalendae of July 109, shortly after the Aqua Traiana was dedicated.
A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or thermae, namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool.
Aquae Cutiliae is an ancient Roman site situated on mineral springs known today as Terme di Cotilia or Terme di Vespasiano, near the modern Cittaducale, 9 miles east of Rieti in the Sabina region.
Curinga is a town and comune in the province of Catanzaro, in the Calabria region of southern Italy. The settlement has historically been inhabited by an Arbëreshë community, which now has assimilated.
The Suburban Baths are a building in Pompeii, Italy, a town in the Italian region of Campania that was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which consequently preserved it.
Horace's Villa is a large ancient Roman villa complex near Licenza, Italy. The identification is likely because Horace wrote several poems about the place, and the special elaborate architectural features and location of the villa correspond to the descriptions in the poetry.
The preservation and extensive excavations at Ostia Antica have brought to light 26 different bath complexes in the town. These range from large public baths, such as the Forum Baths, to smaller most likely private ones such as the small baths. It is unclear from the evidence if there was a fee charged or if they were free. Baths in Ostia would have served both a hygienic and a social function like in many other parts of the Roman world. Bath construction increased after an aqueduct was built for Ostia in the early Julio-Claudian Period. Many of the baths follow simple row arrangements, with one room following the next, due to the density of buildings in Ostia. Only a few, like the Forum Baths or the Baths of the Swimmers, had the space to include palestra. Archaeologist name the bathhouses from features preserved for example the inscription of Buticoso in building I, XIV, 8 lead to the name Bath of Buticosus or the mosaic of Neptune in building II, IV, 2 lead to the Baths of Neptune. The baths in Ostia follow the standard numbering convention by archaeologists, who divided the town into five regions, numbered I to V, and then identified the individual blocks and buildings as follows: (region) I, (block) I, (building) 1.
Ad Quintum was an ancient settlement and a Roman thermal complex in Illyricum, near Bradashesh, present-day Albania. Ad Quintum was a mutatio of the Via Egnatia, which connected western Illyria with eastern Thrace, from the two starting points of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia, to Byzantium. The two branches of the first part of the Via Egnatia converged at Ad Quintum, then the road continued eastwards through the valley of the Shkumbin.
Terme Taurine, also known as the Taurine Baths, is a large elaborate ancient Roman baths complex located about 4 km east of the city of Civitavecchia.
The Baths of the Rotonda are the remains of one of several Roman public baths in the city of Catania, Sicily. Built between the 1st and 2nd century CE, they are not far from the Roman theatre and the odeon. In the Byzantine era, the church of Santa Maria della Rotonda with its characteristic dome was built upon the remains of the Roman baths. Its walls are still covered in medieval and baroque frescoes.
Naples (Italy) and its immediate surroundings preserve an archaeological heritage of inestimable value and among the best in the world. For example, the archaeological park of the Phlegraean Fields is directly connected to the centre of Naples through the Cumana railway, and the nearby sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis are among the World Heritage Sites of UNESCO.
The Stabian Baths are an ancient Roman bathing complex in Pompeii, Italy, the oldest and the largest of the 5 public baths in the city. Their original construction dates back to ca. 125 BC, making them one of the oldest bathing complexes known from the ancient world. They were remodelled and enlarged many times up to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The extensive, luxurious Roman villa Palazzi di Casignana is located on the seashore and near the ancient road linking ancient Locri and Rhegion in today's province of Calabria, Italy. It was discovered in 1964. It reached its zenith during the late empire of the 4th c. AD, a period of turbulence elsewhere.