Up Oplontis
Chapter 3: Stabiae
Most tourists making their way to the Sorrentine peninsula resorts from Naples pass through Castellammare di Stabia. On the coast is a port, a seaside resort and a shipbuilding yard; high on the hill behind is a restored medieval castle which gives the town its name, Castle On The Sea. Between the coast and the hills is the modern town of Castellammare, with its suburbs and districts. The “di Stabia” part was only added to the name around 1912, presumably to associate Castellammare with the adjacent Roman site of Stabiae, one of the towns destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption in 79AD.
Stabiae is the third chapter of “Up Oplontis” articles, which cover “The Other Sites Of The Bay Of Naples”. It is a town with a long and varied history, going back over 2.5 thousand years. Like the others towns destroyed in 79AD it is in the shadow of Vesuvius, so even today, is at great risk if Vesuvius erupted again. The area is very built up now, and more densely populated that at any other time previously.
If it is ancient history and ruins that interest you, then unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum, and even Oplontis, the site of “Scavi di Stabia” is not that easy to get to without a car. It does not seem to be covered by any of the otherwise plentiful tours on offer. The site is nowhere near the tourist route to Sorrento, and not that close to the railway either.
Stabiae
So where exactly is the site of Roman Stabiae, and how do you get there? It is a similar distance from Pompeii as Oplontis, but to the south-west, not north-west. If you are not in a car then you get the train to Via Nocera station on the Circumvesuviana line, not Castellammare Di Stabia station. From there a circular walk, initially up Via Giuseppe Consenza, then down the appropriately named Strada Provinciale Varano Scavi Di Stabia and Passaggiata Archaeologica takes you to the 2 sites currently open, Villa San Marco, then Villa Arianna. Then head back towards Via Nocera station down the steep and narrow Strada Varano. The walk is around 4.5km in total. Be prepared — good shoes, hat, cagoule in case it rains. And keep your hands on your valuables around Strada Varano.
In 2018 both sites were free to enter, and after signing the visitor’s book you receive a small guide booklet with plans, in the language of your choice. It was the only guide booklet available to these sites then. Maybe there is something better now? Although small, it is very good, if you allow for the stilted English translation. We could not find any detailed books, not in English at any rate. Nor were there any glossy tourist books. So if you want further information, you need to search for it on the web. Start with the links at the end of this chapter.
Early History Of Stabiae
What sort of place was Stabiae? Like Pompeii and other towns in Campania it developed well before the Romans took over the area. Finds from a large necropolis discovered in 1957 on via Madonna delle Grazie (not far from the later Roman site) show there were settlements in the area in the 7th C BC. The necropolis of over 300 tombs contains imported pottery of Corinthian, Etruscan, Chalcidian and Attic origin. So the town, which was on the coast then, and had a small port, had major commercial contacts. Also the population became a fusion of different peoples including Etruscans and Greeks.
Stabiae became an Oscan settlement in the 6th C BC, and then the Samnites took over the Oscan town in the 5th C BC. Under the Samnites it seems Stabiae suffered a social and economic slowdown in favour of the development of nearby Pompeii, as indicated by a big reduction in the number of burials. However by the middle of 4th C BC Stabiae began a slow recovery, as indicated by two new burial areas, one discovered near the later Mediaeval Castle in 1932, the other in to the south of Stabiae. A sanctuary, probably dedicated to Athena, was built in the Privati area (south of Stabiae).
Stabiae was then taken over by the town of Nuceria, a town east of Pompeii, and a big rival of it. It provided Nuceria with a port. But when the Romans first invaded Campania in the Samnite wars, they laid siege to Stabiae, and took the town in 308 BC.
Roman Stabiae
The earliest Roman evidence is coins from Rome found in the sanctuary of Privati dating back to the 3rd C BC. During the Punic Wars Stabiae supported Rome against the Carthaginians with young men from Stabiae in the fleet of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, according to the author Silius Italicus.
It is thought that pre-Roman Stabiae was a fortified town (oppidum) and it remained a fortified town after the Romans captured it. In 89BC Stabiae sided with Marius against Sulla in the Social Wars. Sulla attacked the town and destroyed it. So it is reasonable to assume there were fortifications. Sulla then handed the land over to his supporters. The town was rebuilt and like other towns in the Bay Of Naples became a spa resort for the wealthy. Pliny the Elder describes miles of palatial villas along the cliffs there. The town also had a least one gate, which has been excavated near the Villa San Marco. Additionally remains of houses, shops, and a market have been discovered there too.
There is a view that Stabiae may have become similar to Oplontis, i.e. a number of major residential centres within the area administered from Pompeii, having the type of public infrastructure that supported daily life and economic activity that took place in the territory. It is assumed that the town layout was appropriate for a residential spa resort, rather than on a grid pattern like most of Pompeii. There was a large agricultural area around Stabiae containing about 50 rural villas as well as storehouses. These would have cultivated and supplied wine, olives, and other agricultural produce. Stabiae’s spring water was also famous — it was believed to have medicinal properties like other spas.
The eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD destroyed Stabiae in a similar fashion to Pompeii, i.e. ash and pumice falls of varying levels as well as the pyroclastic flow. Stabiae was nearer the edge of the destruction zone, and the ash was not quite as deep as at Pompeii.
Around 25 years after the event, Pliny The Younger wrote 2 letters to the historian Tacitus about the Vesuvius eruption, and today it is recognized as an accurate description. So much so, eruptions like that are described as “Plinian”. He tells of how his uncle, Pliny The Elder, attempted a rescue mission by taking the Roman fleet across the Bay Of Naples from its base at Misenum in the north west corner across to Stabiae. However he perished in the attempt, possibly during the sixth and largest pyroclastic flow of the eruption caused by the collapse of the eruption plume. The diluted edge of this flow reached Stabiae. It left 2cm of fine ash on top of the existing thick layers of pumice and ironically helped protect the already buried remains. This is a translation of an extract from Book 6 Letter 16 describing Pliny The Elder’s rescue attempt at Stabiae from the Attalus website:
“Already ashes were beginning to fall upon the ships, hotter and in thicker showers as they approached more nearly, with pumice-stones and black flints, charred and cracked by the heat of the flames, while their way was barred by the sudden shoaling of the sea bottom and the litter of the mountain on the shore. He hesitated for a moment whether to turn back, and then, when the helmsman warned him to do so, he exclaimed, “Fortune favours the bold; try to reach Pomponianus.” The latter was at Stabiae, separated by the whole width of the bay, for the sea there pours in upon a gently rounded and curving shore. Although the danger was not yet close upon him, it was none the less clearly seen, and it travelled quickly as it came nearer, so Pomponianus had got his baggage together on shipboard, and had determined upon flight, and was waiting for the wind which was blowing on shore to fall. My uncle sailed in with the wind fair behind him, and embraced Pomponianus, who was in a state of fright, comforting and cheering him at the same time. Then in order to calm his friend’s fears by showing how composed he was himself, he ordered the servants to carry him to the bath, and, after his ablutions, he sat down and had dinner in the best of spirits, or with that assumption of good spirits which is quite as remarkable as the reality.
In the meantime broad sheets of flame, which rose high in the air, were breaking out in a number of places on Mount Vesuvius and lighting up the sky, and the glare and brightness seemed all the more striking owing to the darkness of the night. My uncle, in order to allay the fear of his companions, kept declaring that the country people in their terror had left their fires burning, and that the conflagration they saw arose from the blazing and empty villas. Then he betook himself to rest and enjoyed a very deep sleep, for his breathing, which, owing to his bulk, was rather heavy and loud, was heard by those who were waiting at the door of his chamber. But by this time the courtyard leading to the room he occupied was so full of ashes and pumice-stones mingled together, and covered to such a depth, that if he had delayed any longer in the bedchamber there would have been no means of escape. So my uncle was aroused, and came out and joined Pomponianus and the rest who had been keeping watch. They held a consultation whether they should remain indoors or wander forth in the open; for the buildings were beginning to shake with the repeated and intensely severe shocks of earthquake, and seemed to be rocking to and fro as though they had been torn from their foundations. Outside again there was danger to be apprehended from the pumice-stones, though these were light and nearly burnt through, and thus, after weighing the two perils, the latter course was determined upon. With my uncle it was a choice of reasons which prevailed, with the rest a choice of fears.
They placed pillows on their heads and secured them with cloths, as a precaution against the falling bodies. Elsewhere the day had dawned by this time, but there it was still night, and the darkness was blacker and thicker than any ordinary night. This, however, they relieved as best they could by a number of torches and other kinds of lights. They decided to make their way to the shore, and to see from the nearest point whether the sea would enable them to put out, but it was still running high and contrary. A sheet was spread on the ground, and on this my uncle lay, and twice he called for a draught of cold water, which he drank. Then the flames, and the smell of sulphur which gave warning of them, scattered the others in flight and roused him. Leaning on two slaves, he rose to his feet and immediately fell down again, owing, as I think, to his breathing being obstructed by the thickness of the fumes and congestion of the stomach, that organ being naturally weak and narrow, and subject to inflammation. When daylight returned — two days after the last day he had seen — his body was found untouched, uninjured, and covered, dressed just as he had been in life. The corpse suggested a person asleep rather than a dead man.”
I think this is an astonishing piece of writing, so vivid, so dramatic. From it we can deduce that Pliny’s uncle managed to dock at Stabiae, get ashore, in poor visibility, find his friend’s villa, and have a meal there. All whilst Vesuvius was belching out all manner of gases and ash. He perished on returning to the shore. We do not know which villa belonged to Pomponianus, whether it was one that has been excavated. Imagine if we could find out, if a piece of pottery or graffiti with Pomponianus’s name on was found. Maybe one day! Note the description of the bay and shore at Stabiae, completely different today.
And so Stabiae was destroyed, like Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis. However unlike at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis, some human activity returned to Stabiae. Around 40 years later the road to Nuceria (remember the Circumvesuviana station is called Via Nocera) was rebuilt. The road’s 11th milestone was recovered from a dig at the cathedral. Also in a poem, the writer Publius Papinius Statius asked his wife to join him in what he called “Stabias renatas” (Stabiae reborn). In the 2nd C AD new cemeteries were created below the Villa Arianna), Santa Maria la Carità and Pimonte.
Archaeologists have found tunnels at Pompeii which indicate people went back there after the eruption, whether to retrieve lost goods, or loot, is not known. However they do not appear to have had much success. Nevertheless it shows that enough people survived the eruption, even if the site was never re-occupied. At Stabiae it seems the level of ash and pumice burial cannot have been as deep as Pompeii if some of the area was re-settled. To date though, other than the evidence above, little is known of what type of settlement there was 40 years later. Presumably nothing on the previous scale, but only future discoveries will tell us.
So there are in essence 4 versions of Stabiae: the pre-Roman town, the Roman town before Sulla destroyed it, the resort town for the rich with an agricultural hinterland that supported it, and some sort of town or settlement from around 120 AD onwards. However there does not appear to be readily available detailed information about the layout of any of them, or at least none that I can find. There are just the maps that show where the main villas from the resort town destroyed by Vesuvius were, and plans for the villas that have been excavated.
The Re-Discovery Of Stabiae
Excavations began in Stabiae in 1749, 1 year after those at Pompeii. Over the next few years the areas around Villa San Marco and the Villa Of The Shepherd were excavated, and later Villa Arianna. Plans were produced, and finds removed, then the villas and other buildings were reburied. It seems they estimated the Roman town was around 45,000 sq m.
No more work was done on Stabiae until the 1950s. Then the archaeologist Libero D’Orsi re-excavated parts of a residential area about 300m from Villa San Marco including remains of houses, shops, and parts of the macellum (market) to which roads from the port converged. These remains were again reburied and the only visible evidence of the ancient village is a gate located next to the Villa San Marco, as per the picture earlier.
The site was declared an archaeological protected zone in 1957, and by 1962 many of the ruins were uncovered again. The remains of both an Oscan settlement (oppidum), and the later Roman town were re-discovered.
In 2004 the Italian archaeology authorities started a venture with the University Of Maryland in the USA to form the non-profit Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation (RAS). The aim was to excavate, restore and build an archaeological park in Stabia.
In 2008 Villa San Marco and Villa Arianna were re-explored. In San Marco a series of rooms, two latrines and a garden were brought to light, while in Arianna part of the great peristyle that looked directly over the sea was discovered.
In 2009 new excavations found a Roman road running along the northern perimeter of Villa San Marco. It is a cobbled road that connected Stabiae with the shore. The road includes the gate already mentioned, and along the walls are a myriad of graffiti and small drawings in charcoal. On the other side of the road a baths area of a villa was discovered, which had been partly explored back in the 18th C. A Roman road was found which led to the entrance of a domus belonging to the “Ager Stabianus”, the agricultural area that supported the town. In May 2010 a villa from the 1st C AD was discovered during the work to double the track of the Circumvesuviana railway, between the stations of Ponte Persica and Pioppaino, I cannot find the precise location of this but it is well away from the rest of Stabiae, about half way towards Pompeii.
Work is still continuing on what is an extensive Stabiae site, and will be for years to come. However at the moment, only the San Marco and Arianna villas are open to visit.
In the next Chapter will I will say at lot more about the villas at Stabiae.
Up Oplontis. Chapter 4: The Stabiae Villas | by Peter Coglan | Jul, 2024 | Medium
Further Reading & Internet
Stabiae’s Archaeological Excavations Soprintendenza Pompei 2016
Pliny: Letters — Book 6 (attalus.org)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabiae
https://rometheimperialfora19952010.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/stabiae_master_plan_ingleselr.pdf
http://www.stabiae.org/foundation/en/
https://archaeology-travel.com/travel-tips/how-to-get-to-stabiae/
