Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
古羅馬的超級富豪們周末會來到這裡聚會。權勢顯赫的政客們在這裡的海灘上建造了奢華的別墅。這些別墅配備溫泉和鋪著馬賽克的泳池，置身其中的人們沉迷於最狂野的慾望。有人甚至託人建造了一座大理石雕像圍繞的、專供”人間娛樂”的私人洞穴。
兩千多年前，巴亞（Baia）堪稱羅馬帝國的拉斯維加斯。它是一座度假小鎮，位於義大利密布著火山口的西海岸上，距離那不勒斯（Naples）約30公里。從詩人到將軍，這座小鎮迎合了各類人群的幻想。偉大的演說家西塞羅（Cicero）退休之後曾在海灣邊創作演講稿；詩人維吉爾（Virgil）和博物學家普林尼（Pliny）在靠近公共療養浴池的地方建有住宅。
巴亞也是有錢有勢的人從事非法勾當的場所。
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES Image caption兩千多年前，巴亞堪稱羅馬帝國的拉斯維加斯（圖片來源: MaximeBermond/Getty Images）
“巴亞伴隨著許多離奇的傳說”，與當地考古學家一起探索遺址的研究人員約翰·斯莫特（John Smout）說道。據傳聞，凱撒大帝（Julius Caesar）在公元前44年被謀殺之後，克莉奧帕特拉（Cleopatra）正是從這裡乘船逃走的；為了讓兒子尼祿（Nero）登上羅馬皇帝的寶座，小阿格里皮娜（Julia Agrippina）在這裡毒殺了丈夫克勞狄一世（Claudius）。
“她讓克勞狄一世食用有毒的蘑菇，” 斯莫特解說道：”但是，克勞狄一世在食用之後卻並沒有死。小阿格里皮娜在當晚又命令醫生給克勞狄一世注射有毒的野生葫蘆製成的灌腸劑。最後，謀殺終於得逞。”
公元前二世紀下半葉，富含礦物質的溫泉和溫和的氣候開始吸引羅馬城的貴族前往巴亞。這座小鎮被他們稱為”燃燒的田野”，因為這裡坑坑窪窪地布滿了火山口。
斯莫特回憶道：”我在幼年時曾參觀過這裡的遺址。導遊把傘戳進地面時，蒸汽和熔岩噴薄而出。”
古希臘人和古羅馬人對這些破火山口心存敬畏，認為它們是通往陰間的入口。事實上，這些破火山口催生了眾多技術進步成果，例如當地特有的防水水泥（一種石灰和火山岩的混合物），這種水泥被用在建造雄偉的穹頂、大理石製成的建築立面、私人的魚池和豪華的公共浴室上。
儘管這座小鎮聲名狼藉，但頻繁的火山活動可能才是導致巴亞衰敗的真正原因。若干個世紀的熱液活動、地震活動引發的地殼緩慢升降導致巴亞許多地方被海水淹沒，形成了今日的景象。
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES Image caption富含礦物質的溫泉和溫和的氣候開始吸引羅馬城的貴族前往巴亞（圖片來源: De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images）
這個曾經名噪一時的沿海旅遊勝地直到上世紀四十年代才復甦。當時，一名飛行員分享了他在空中拍攝的海平面正下方一棟宏偉建築的照片。不久之後，海岸附近的廢墟上發現了軟體動物留下的洞穴。這令地質學家們苦思不得其解。有跡象表明，當地部分山坡曾浸入海平面下方。二十年後，義大利官員委託一艘潛水艇勘測巴亞的水下部分。
潛水艇的勘測結果令人振奮。從羅馬時代開始，地下壓力導致巴亞周圍的陸地不斷升降，這種升降活動迫使廢墟朝著海平面上升，避免被海水再次緩慢吞噬。這一過程堪稱”地質煉獄”。
之前，只有少數考古學家敢於探索這些海面下的廢墟。水下考古現場直到2002年對公眾開放時才被正式指定為海洋保護區域。在那之後，得益於3D掃描技術和海洋考古學領域其他先進技術的應用，這一古代遺蹟首次被展現在公眾面前。潛水員、歷史學家和攝影師們捕捉到了水下的圓形建築和門廊，包括著名的維納斯神廟（Temple of Venus）（實際上並不是一座廟，而是一處桑拿浴場所）。這些發現為探索羅馬帝國最荒淫的時代提供了線索。
Image copyrightALAMY Image caption在風平浪靜的日子，遊客們可以看到這座位於伊特魯里亞海下的古羅馬城鎮的遺蹟（圖片來源: Photononstop/Alamy）
巴亞的廢墟實際上位於相對較淺的水域，平均深度6米。這是源於地殼的波動。遊客們可以乘坐底板採用玻璃製作的小船（又稱”videobarca”），欣賞某些怪異的水下結構物。當地的潛水中心（例如Centro Sub Campi Flegreo，近期曾陪同BBC拍攝關於巴亞古城的紀錄片）還會為遊客遊覽數公里之外伊特魯里亞海（Tyrrhenian Sea）的水下古城提供水下通氣管和自攜式水下呼吸器。在風平浪靜的日子，遊客們可以看到羅馬柱、古時的道路和精心鋪設的廣場。水下洞穴的入口處放置著克勞狄雅·屋大維婭（Claudia Octavia，克勞狄一世的女兒）和尤里西斯（Ulysses）的雕像。它們伸長的手臂上纏繞著藤壺。
海平面以上也有大量景觀。許多水下雕塑實際上都是複製品，原作可以在山上的巴亞城堡（Baia Castle）看到。坎帕尼亞考古監管區（Archaeological Superintendency for Campania）在巴亞城堡運營著一座海上遺蹟博物館。考古學家阿米迪歐·邁烏里（Amedeo Maiuri）在上世紀五十年代在附近發掘的巴亞考古公園（Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia）是巴亞古城露出海面的部分。在這裡可以看到許多羅馬時代的地上廢墟。邁烏里還發掘了龐貝-赫庫蘭尼姆古城。馬賽克走廊和裝有穹頂的公共浴室是這座地上古蹟的特色。
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES Image caption地下壓力導致巴亞周圍的陸地在海面下不斷升降（圖片來源: De Agostini/G.Carfagna/Getti Images）
考古公園周圍的現代巴亞城是富麗堂皇的巴亞古城的複製品，但它仍彰顯出慵懶、娛樂的氣息。今天，曾經遍布宅邸和公共浴室的海岸線已經建起了小碼頭、旅館和為數不多的海鮮餐廳。這些設施排列在沿東北方向通往那不勒斯的狹窄道路上。
巴亞遺蹟見證了義大利古時的繁華。但是，留給遊客的時間可能已經不多了。地震學家預測，在不久的將來，巴亞的海岸將爆發進一步的火山活動。這將使這座古城再次陷入命運叵測的境地。僅去年，這裡就爆發了二十次小型地震。近年來，已有人討論將水下廢墟永久封閉，不再對遊客開放。
但是，遊客目前可以通過一個隱蔽的入口搜尋這座水下城市，即使不是深入陰間的入口，那麼至少也能見識到一些壯觀的地下寶藏。
Ancient Rome’s Sinful City at the bottom of the sea
By Adrienne Bernhard
5 January 2018
Rome’s ultra-wealthy took weekend trips here to party. Powerful statesmen built luxurious villas on its beach, with heated spas and mosaic-tiled pools where they could indulge their wildest desires. One resident even commissioned a nymphaeum – a private grotto surrounded by marble statues, dedicated solely to 『earthly pleasure』.
More than 2,000 years ago, Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire – a resort town approximately 30km from Naples on Italy’s caldera-peppered west coast that catered to the whims of poets, generals and everyone in between. The great orator Cicero composed speeches from his retreat by the bay, while the poet Virgil and the naturalist Pliny maintained residences within easy reach of the rejuvenating public baths.
It was also the place where the rich and powerful came to carry out their illicit affairs.
More than 2,000 years ago, Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire (Credit: Maxime Bermond/Getty Images)
「There are many tales of intrigue associated with Baia,」 said John Smout, a researcher who has partnered with local archaeologists to study the site. Rumour has it that Cleopatra escaped in her boat from Baia after Julius Caesar was murdered in 44BC, while Julia Agrippina plotted her husband Claudius』 death at Baia so her son Nero could become emperor of Rome.
「She poisoned Claudius with deadly mushrooms,」 Smout explained. 「But he somehow survived, so that same night, Agrippina got her physician to administer an enema of poisonous wild gourd, which finally did the trick.」
Mineral waters and a mild climate first attracted Rome’s nobility to Baia in the latter half of the 2nd Century BC, and the town was known to them as the Phlegraean (or 『flaming』) Fields, so named because of the calderas that pockmark the region.
It was the place where the rich and powerful came to carry out their illicit affairs
「I visited the site as a boy and the guide poked an umbrella into the ground and steam and lava came out,」 Smout recalled.
The calderas were revered by the ancient Greeks and Romans as entrances to the underworld, but they also fuelled a number of technological advancements: the local invention of waterproof cement, a mixture of lime and volcanic rock, spurred construction of airy domes and marbled facades, as well as private fish ponds and lavish bath houses.
But given Baia’s sinful reputation, it is perhaps fitting that the abundance of volcanic activity in the area was also its downfall. Over several centuries, bradyseism, the gradual rise and fall of the Earth’s surface caused by hydrothermal and seismic activity, caused much of the city to sink into a watery grave, where it still sits today.
Mineral waters and a mild climate first attracted Rome’s nobility to Baia (Credit: De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images)
Tourist interest in the once-popular coastline was only renewed in the 1940s when a pilot shared an aerial photo of an edifice just below the ocean’s surface. Soon, geologists puzzled over boreholes left by molluscs on ruins found near the shore, tell-tale signs that parts of the hillside had once dipped below sea level. Two decades later, Italian officials commissioned a submarine to survey the underwater parts of the city.
What they found was fascinating: since Roman times, underground pressure has caused the land surrounding Baia to continuously rise and fall, pushing the ancient ruins upwards towards the sea’s surface before slowly swallowing them again – a kind of geological purgatory.
The ruins beneath the sea’s surface were the province of just a few intrepid archaeologists until recently. The underwater archaeological site was not formally designated a marine protected area and until 2002, which is when it opened to the public. Since then, 3D-scanning technology and other advances in marine archaeology have offered first-time glimpses into this chapter of antiquity: divers, historians and photographers have captured submerged rotundas and porticos, including the famed Temple of Venus (not a temple, but a thermal sauna) – discoveries that have in turn provided clues to Rome’s most outrageous debauchery.
On a calm day, visitors can spot remnants of the Roman town below the Tyrrhenian Sea (Credit: Photononstop/Alamy)
Because of the undulation of the Earth’s crust, these ruins actually lie in relatively shallow water, at an average depth of 6m, allowing visitors to see some of its eerie underwater structures from a glass-bottomed boat, or videobarca. Local diving centres such as the Centro Sub Campi Flegreo (who partnered with the BBC on a recent documentary about Baia) also offer snorkelling and scuba tours of the submerged city a few kilometres out in the Tyrrhenian Sea. On a calm day, visitors can spot Roman columns, ancient roads and elaborately paved plazas. Statues of Octavia Claudia (Emperor Claudius』 sister) and Ulysses mark the entrance to underwater grottos, their outstretched arms flecked with barnacles.
There’s plenty to see above the water line, as well. In fact, many of the submerged sculptures are actually replicas; the originals can be found up the hill at the Baia Castle, where the Archaeological Superintendency for Campania manages a museum of relics pulled from the sea. Many above-ground Roman ruins are also visible nearby at the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, the portion of the ancient city still above sea level.Excavated in the 1950s by Amedeo Maiuri, the archaeologist who also unearthed Pompeii and Herculaneum, the on-land historical site features the remains of mosaic terraces and domed bathhouses.
Underground pressure has caused the land surrounding Baia to continuously rise above and fall below the water line (Credit: De Agostini/G.Carfagna/Getti Images)
Surrounding the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, modern Baia is a shadow of its former magnificence, though it still captures the spirit of idleness and pleasure. These days the coastline that was once peppered with mansions and bathhouses features a small marina, a hotel and a handful of seafood restaurants lining a narrow road running north-east toward Naples.
Time may be running out to see this lost relic of ancient Italy’s opulence: seismologists predict further volcanic activity along Baia’s coast in the near future, rendering the city’s fate uncertain once again. Twenty small earthquakes were recorded in the area this past year alone, and talk in recent years has touched on permanently closing the sunken ruins to visitors.
For now, however, visitors can search this underwater city for a hidden entrance – if not to the underworld, then at least to some spectacular subterranean treasures.