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STABIAE WAS A PREMIER ITALIAN VACATION SPOT some 2,000 years ago. The area now known as Castellammare di Stabia was where Rome’s wealthiest politicians and aristocrats spent their summers in hedonistic style. They built expansive villas overlooking the Bay of Naples and decorated the verdant landscape with mosaic murals, hot and cold plunge pools, marble columns and colorful frescos depicting scenes from Greek mythology.
“In Stabiano: Exploring the Ancient Seaside Villas of the Roman Elite” allows us to visit the splendor of those times. The touring exhibit opened in 2004 at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it was enthusiastically greeted by 3 million visitors. Now showing at the San Diego Museum of Art through May 14, the exhibition includes about 70 objects dating from 89 B.C to 79 A.D.
There are five ancient villas represented. “In Stabiano” includes more than 20 frescoes in remarkable condition that were unearthed, along with sculpture, stucco reliefs and decorative and utilitarian objects in marble, terracotta, bronze and glass. Maps, excavation photographs and explanatory panels trace the history of the archeological find.
Like nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum, Stabiae was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., killing thousands but effectively preserving furnishings, household items and farm equipment. Pliny the Younger was an eyewitness to the disaster and, in a letter to the historian Tacitus, described a giant cloud of smoke that rose up from the mountain and spread across the sky, assuming the shape of a pine tree. People ran with pillows on their heads to protect themselves from falling rocks. Most died by suffocation under more than 10 feet of ash, stone and cinders. But some human remains were found with the tops of their skulls missing—their brains exploded in heat that reached more than 700 degrees.
King Charles VII of Naples ordered archaeological excavations of Stabiae in 1749, and the site was excavated again in the 1950s, when an inquisitive high school principal teamed with local volunteers and, at his own expense, began a search for ancient artifacts. Eventually, the project was overseen by the Archaeological Superintendency of Pompeii. The Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation will continue excavations and plans to build a 150-acre archaeological park at the site.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is an entire “triclinium,” a three-couch dining room, decorated with frescoes depicting Dionysus (Greek god of wine), Neptune, Amymone, Bacchus (Roman god of wine) and Ceres. We can imagine the dining, drinking and deal-making of Rome’s most powerful players in such a place, dressed in flowing robes and adorned with gold and jewels. They would have been surrounded by servants and beautiful women—and completely unprepared for the monumental disaster that would one day offer us a window into their lavish world.
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