Agnano is a suburb of

Napoli Naples ( ; ; ) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its province-level municipality is the thir ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, situated southwest of the city in the

Campi Flegrei The Phlegraean Fields (, ; ) is a large volcanic caldera west of Naples, Italy. The Neapolitan Yellow Tuff eruption (about 12ka BP) produced just 50 cubic kilometers. It is, however, one of relatively few volcanoes large enough to form a cal ...

region. It was popular among both

ancient Greeks Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically re ...

and

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

and was famed for its hot sulphurous springs.

History

Lake Agnano __NOTOC__ Lago di Agnano or Lake Agnano was a circular lake, some 6½ km in circumference, which occupied the crater of the extinct volcano of Agnano 8 km west of Naples, Italy. It was apparently not formed until the Middle Ages, as it is not ...

formed in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

in the volcanic crater but was drained in 1870 to increase

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

and reduce the habitat of the ''

Anopheles ''Anopheles'' () is a genus of mosquito first described by the German entomologist Johann Wilhelm Meigen, J. W. Meigen in 1818, and are known as nail mosquitoes and marsh mosquitoes. Many such mosquitoes are Disease vector, vectors of the paras ...

mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...

, which carries the

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

parasite. The crater is now home to the Agnano

hippodrome Hippodrome is a term sometimes used for public entertainment venues of various types. A modern example is the Hippodrome which opened in London in 1900 "combining circus, hippodrome, and stage performances". The term hippodroming refers to fr ...

and the town. After World War II, Agnano was home to the U.S. Naval Support Activity consisting of the U.S. Naval Hospital, administrative offices, barracks, and two

Department of Defense Education Activity The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) is a federal school system headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, responsible for planning, directing, coordinating, and managing prekindergarten through 12th grade educational programs on beh ...

schools: Naples Elementary School and

Naples American High School Naples Middle/High School (NMHS), formerly known as Naples American High School, is a high school within the Department of Defense Education Activity system. It is located in Gricignano di Aversa, Campania, Italy. History Early days In the sum ...

Sights

Lago di Agnano e Grotta del Cane - acquaforte aquerellata Sieur de Rogissart

The ruins of ancient Greek thermal baths from the 4th-rd c. BC are visible in the former mud pit of the new baths. Most of the existing structures date from the Roman period of the 1st-2nd century AD and are to the west of the main road. The Grotto of the Dog near the baths is an ancient cave which fills with volcanic carbon dioxide and has killed animals that entered it.

Ancient Roman Baths

The remains are located in the grounds of the modern spa and in the adjacent CIM Military Equestrian Centre. The baths area is very extensive and occupies the entire northern side of the ridge on several terraces. The complex was investigated towards the end of the 1800s and systematically in 1911 by V. Macchioro. The baths were probably part of a

mansio In the Roman Empire, a ''mansio'' (from the Latin word ''mansus,'' the perfect passive participle of ''manere'' "to remain" or "to stay") was an official stopping place on a Roman road, or ''via'', maintained by the central government for the use ...

, or station, beside the road from Neapolis and

Puteoli Pozzuoli (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) of the Metropolitan City of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It is the main city of the Phlegrean Peninsula. History Antiquity Pozzuoli began as the Greek colony of ''Dicaearchia ...

. At present parts of the main terrace, the baths and the curvilinear wall supporting an upper terrace are clearly visible. The baths were fed by the copious local hot springs which still flow. For its cold water supply system, a series of cisterns communicating with each other are close to the curvilinear wall. After the Aqua Augusta (Serino aqueduct) was built in the late 1st c. BC, passing along the rim of the crater just above the baths, a secondary conduit branched off it to the baths through a 70 m-long tunnel dug into the mountain and which poured the water into two basins. From here the water reached the individual rooms by means of a system of tubs, pipes and taps, the main conduit of which ran under the floor of the frigidarium. The baths included an

apodyterium In ancient Rome, the ''apodyterium'' (from , "undressing room") was the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing.PBS https: ...

frigidarium A ''frigidarium'' is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or ''thermae'', namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool. The succession of bathing activities in the ''thermae'' is not known with certainty, but it is tho ...

, and several warm rooms: (

tepidaria The ''tepidarium'' was the warm (''tepidus'') bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a ''tepidarium'' is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat, which directly affects the human bod ...

caldaria 230px, ''Caldarium'' from the Roman baths at Bath, England. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor. A (also called a ''calidarium'', ''cella caldaria'' or ''cella coctilium'') wa ...

and

laconica GNU social (and its predecessor StatusNet) is a largely defunct free and open-source microblogging social networking service that implements the OStatus and ActivityPub standards for interoperability between installations. While offering similar f ...

). The laconicum was heated through openings both in the walls and from under the floor. As prescribed by

Vitruvius Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...

, the bathing route involved the passage from the laconicum to the tepidarium so as to allow, after sweating, the use of the tepid bath. This room, equipped with a basin, also allowed the passage from the more heated rooms to the frigidarium . The calidarium is rectangular in shape with one of the short sides having an apse and is heated by a praefurnium or furnace so as to reach a higher temperature. Magnificent mosaics and sculptures were discovered here. Ancient Roman baths Agnano

Finds

Musengruppe von Agnano Liebieghaus 159-163

A group of statues of

muses In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...

, including the famous ''Frankfurt Urania'', was discovered in the Roman baths and is now in the

Liebieghaus The Liebieghaus is a late 19th-century villa in Frankfurt, Germany. It contains a sculpture museum, the , which is part of the Museumsufer on the Sachsenhausen bank of the River Main. The collection comprises some 3,000 sculptures, spanning ov ...

museum. The figures, dating from 120-100BC, had been removed from their original location in ancient times and it is believed that they were originally from

Delos Delos (; ; ''Dêlos'', ''Dâlos''), is a small Greek island near Mykonos, close to the centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Though only in area, it is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. ...

near the temple of

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

. The fine execution of the robes is especially skillful and their arrangement and textures emphasise the figures’ beautiful bodies. Although the condition of the group is somewhat fragmentary, the style is very naturalistic. Four sculptures were also found in the frigidarium during the first excavations before 1911: Venus marina, armed Aphrodite, Hermes with child Dionysus, and Ganymede, now in the

Naples museum The National Archaeological Museum of Naples (, ) is an important Italian archaeological museum. Its collection includes works from Greek, Roman and Renaissance times, and especially Roman artifacts from the nearby Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculan ...

datable to the first half of the 2nd century AD.

References

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