Campania's Ancient Treasures

As so often happens in history, other people's catastrophes are an archaeologist's dream: Pompeii, Herculaneum, and nearby ancient sites were remarkably preserved for posterity courtesy of Vesuvius's biggest eruption, in AD 79.

Pompeii, Herculaneum, Pozzuoli, Baia, Cumae, Oplontis . . . no wonder the regions to the west and east of Naples are considered two of the world's greatest treasure troves of Greek and Roman antiquity. The Bay of Naples has a Greco-Roman history that makes the big city itself look like the new kid on the block. The Greeks first Hellenized Italy's boot in the 8th century BC at Cumae. From the 1st century BC, the Romans made the region a vast playground. Favored by upper-middle-class Romans, Pompeii and Herculaneum were like French Riviera towns of today. And when emperors wanted to indulge in sybaritic living, they headed west instead, from Puteoli to Baia, to build palatial residences for indulging in vices that would have been unseemly in Pompeii or (just read Petronius's Satyricon) Rome.

Villa at Oplontis

The gigantic villa at Oplontis is attributed to Nero's second wife, Poppaea. When Vesuvius erupted, the villa was probably empty, suggesting that it was undergoing restructuring. The villa does, though, have ravishing Roman murals done in the 2nd and 3rd Pompeiian styles.

Pompeii

When it comes to Campania's overflowing basket of treasures of the ancient world, everyone starts with Pompeii, and rightly so. Rome’s Forum might be more majestic, but for a cross-section of Roman everyday life, Pompeii is UNESCO World Heritage site number one.

Not only are the everyday people of the city commemorated, but in the Orchard of the Fugitives they are also preserved as death left them. In the Thermopolia, the day's takings were found in the till. On the walls of the thermal baths, houses, shops, theatres and lupanari (brothels), graffiti abounds.

On the day you visit, some sections of Pompeii may be closed for restoration, but the place is so large that there's always more than enough to see.

Herculaneum

The excavations here are more compact than in Pompeii. The mix of mud and pyroclastic matter left much organic material eerily intact, down to a carbonized Roman boat given its own pavilion, along with spectacular frescoes and mosaics. To see it all come alive, visit the MAV Museum, whose exhibits include a computer re-creation of the fateful day in AD 79, when Vesuvius blew.

Baia

With its thermal springs, this bay of bays boasted antiquity’s most extensive bath complex, where Rome’s Great and the Good headed for leisure purposes. Much of the complex remains on the slopes, though part of one pleasure palace—Emperor Claudius’s Nymphaeum—lies submerged, the highlight of a submarine area you can view on a glass-bottom boat.

Cumae

Here Greeks established their first foothold on Italy’s mainland, introducing the cult of Apollo whose priestess, the Cumaean Sibyl, prophesied for Aeneas the founding of Rome. Eight centuries later she was still in business, predicting, at least according to Robert Graves, to a young Claudius his future emperorship. Her "cave," one of the ancient wonders of the world, is actually part of a Roman military tunnel.