The Ancient Stabiae

Enjoy a guided tour of the rich Roman residential villas of Stabia a few steps from Pompeii and also buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. A few kilometers from Pompeii ruins, there is the archaeological site of the ancient town of Stabiae, in today’s Castellammare di Stabia. It enjoys an excellent strategic position thanks to its terraces overlooking the sea. Here, in Roman times, the great patricians used to spend their holidays and build large and sumptuous panoramic villas. Stabiae too suffered the fate of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The excavation of the site began with the Bourbons in 1749 and is still ongoing today. Archaeologists’ research has brought to light three sumptuous residential villas with beautiful frescoes and mosaics. The first one is Villa S. Marco which, thanks to its surface of 11,000 square meters, is one of the largest residential Roman villas; then, there is Villa Arianna, which is the oldest and owes its name to the large painting depicting Ariadne abandoned by Theseus at Nasso found in the back wall of the triclinium; lastly, the “Second complex” of the Varano.