Baiae

I was rather fascinated to read in Tom Holland’s book about Baiae, the Roman resort on the Gulf of Naples which was the Roman equivalent of the Hamptons or Malibu, complete with that combination of sexual libertinism and dietary epicureanism which I associate with certain members of today’s American elite.

Once upon a time, a soothsayer had scoffed that the boy had no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding across the Bay of Baiae on horseback.

In a gesture designed to appear conciliatory, Nero invited his mother, Agrippina, to join him at a festival in Baiae, a resort town near present-day Naples.

He lived partly at Rome, partly at his Sabine farm, varying his residence occasionally by visits to Tibur, Praeneste or Baiae.

Just before the end he withdrew to Baiae, leaving Antoninus in charge at Rome.