October 18 & 19, 2022 Diving Baiae - a sunken ancient Roman City
340 بار بازدید -
2 سال پیش
-
Baiae was a Roman city
Baiae was a Roman city that was well known since 1BC for its hedonistic pleasures. It was an exclusive city where Roman nobility enjoyed its idyllic location, its therapeutic mineral springs, held drunken parties, conspired murder, and engaged in all manners of sexual pleasure.
Most of Baiae is now underwater due to an effect called Bradisismo (bradyseism). Bradisismo is the rising and lowering of land due to pressure from underground volcanic craters that fill with magma (causing land to rise) and release magma (causing the land to sink). The one that affected Baia comes from Solfatara di Pozzuoli. It is now dormant, but still emits jets of steam and sulfurous fumes. Its magma chamber is 3km underground. Baiae is in the process now of rising.
Dive sites visited are: Portus Julius, Villa Pisoni, Emperor Claudio's Nymphaeum, Villa a Protiro (both East and West sides), Terme del Lacus, and Secca Fermosa (Smokey Reef). You will see ancient Roman ruins, statues, incredible mosaic floors, fumaroles (columns of volcanic gas bubbling up from the bottom) and sulfur deposits.
The best part of history is its back stories. Baiae is certainly full of that!! Some of the most famous names had villas here…..Caesar, Cicero, Mark Anthony, Brutus, and Nero, to name a few.
Murders were plotted here. Julia Agrippina plotted her husband Claudius’s death here so her son, Nero, could become emperor. She poisoned Claudius with mushrooms, but he survived….so that evening, Agrippina got her physician to administer an enema of poisonous wild gourd, which finally did the deed! Nero then had his mother Agrippina murdered in the villa he had built in Baiae. Hadrian died there and Caligula built his famous pontoon bridge extending from Baia to Pozzuoli. It is said that Cleopatra was staying in Baiae at the time of Julius Caesar’s death in 44 BC. She escaped in her boat from Baiae after Julius Caesar was murdered. And so….the history of Baiae continues!
But these are stories. What was written of Baiae? The poet Sextus Propertius described Baiae as a “den of licentiousness and vice.” The Roman scholar Varo had described it as “the place where old men come to become young boys again and young boys come to become young girls.” Seneca the Younger said Baiae was a “vortex of luxury” and a “harbor of vice.”
Enjoy this remarkable place!
Most of Baiae is now underwater due to an effect called Bradisismo (bradyseism). Bradisismo is the rising and lowering of land due to pressure from underground volcanic craters that fill with magma (causing land to rise) and release magma (causing the land to sink). The one that affected Baia comes from Solfatara di Pozzuoli. It is now dormant, but still emits jets of steam and sulfurous fumes. Its magma chamber is 3km underground. Baiae is in the process now of rising.
Dive sites visited are: Portus Julius, Villa Pisoni, Emperor Claudio's Nymphaeum, Villa a Protiro (both East and West sides), Terme del Lacus, and Secca Fermosa (Smokey Reef). You will see ancient Roman ruins, statues, incredible mosaic floors, fumaroles (columns of volcanic gas bubbling up from the bottom) and sulfur deposits.
The best part of history is its back stories. Baiae is certainly full of that!! Some of the most famous names had villas here…..Caesar, Cicero, Mark Anthony, Brutus, and Nero, to name a few.
Murders were plotted here. Julia Agrippina plotted her husband Claudius’s death here so her son, Nero, could become emperor. She poisoned Claudius with mushrooms, but he survived….so that evening, Agrippina got her physician to administer an enema of poisonous wild gourd, which finally did the deed! Nero then had his mother Agrippina murdered in the villa he had built in Baiae. Hadrian died there and Caligula built his famous pontoon bridge extending from Baia to Pozzuoli. It is said that Cleopatra was staying in Baiae at the time of Julius Caesar’s death in 44 BC. She escaped in her boat from Baiae after Julius Caesar was murdered. And so….the history of Baiae continues!
But these are stories. What was written of Baiae? The poet Sextus Propertius described Baiae as a “den of licentiousness and vice.” The Roman scholar Varo had described it as “the place where old men come to become young boys again and young boys come to become young girls.” Seneca the Younger said Baiae was a “vortex of luxury” and a “harbor of vice.”
Enjoy this remarkable place!
2 سال پیش
در تاریخ 1401/08/07 منتشر شده
است.
340
بـار بازدید شده