Near the sea lie the remains of a building from the imperial era, traditionally identified as the tomb of Agrippina, mother of Nero. In reality, the monument is a theater-nymphaeum, part of an imposing seaside villa that has been destroyed. The structure, originally an odeon (covered theater for musical auditions or mime performances) from the Augustan or Julio-Claudian period, was transformed between the late 1st and early 2nd century AD into an exedra nymphaeum. The monument consists of three semicircles arranged on multiple levels: about 1.30 meters below the current beach level is the first semicircle, while the middle one is covered by a vault whose extrados preserves traces of a staircase in opus reticulatum; three openings separated by windows mark the outer wall. At a lower level, there is also a room covered by a vault decorated with stuccoes; similar decorations adorn the walls of the niches and windows, as well as the corridor that originally may have connected the building to the villa. On the same level as the previous one is a third semicircle, whose vault has collapsed and whose inner wall is divided by stucco-covered half-columns with Corinthian capitals, forming a sort of corridor divided into small rooms by transverse partitions.
Information on the Tomb of Agrippina (so-called)
Via Spiaggia
80070 Bacoli (Naples)
0815234368 – 0818040430
sar-cam.cuma@beniculturali.it
https://www.archeona.beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
