 main index © Jeff Matthews 2002-2012 entry Aug 2009 The arched pier
of Roman Puteoli (Pozzuoli).
(*note)
Though there is considerable discussion over the extent to which the coastline has changed since the time of the Romans, it is a matter of simple (albeit underwater!) observation that there are submerged Roman buildings and port facilities in the bay off of Pozzuoli and adjacent (to the west) Baia. The movement, by the way, has not always been all in one direction; that is, since the 1980 earthquake and subsequent bradisisms, the land has actually risen, not subsided; the famous Temple of Serapis (photo, left)—which used to be submerged up to about the one-meter mark on the columns—is now totally on dry land, and the entire port had to be rebuilt in the 1980s to accommodate the drop in perceived sea-level at portside. [Also see the entries on the Imperial Port of Baia, the Baia Castle and Museum
and the geology of the
area.]
The
modern sea-wall that shelters the port disguises
history rather well. When the Roman empire fell,
Pozzuoli, with the adjacent imperial glory of the port
facilities of Baia, went into centuries of decline. As
late as the 1880s, a travel writer in the New York
Times could still say: “...The harbor of Pozzuoli is an interesting place to visit, if only to study the manner in which the ancients built their piers. There still remains the tremendous structure, or a very large portion of it, called by Seneca, Pilae, and by Suetonius, Moles Puteolanae. Of 25 buttresses, which supported 24 arches, 16 are left, three being under water. They are constructed of brick and pozzulana earth, and bear an inscription reporting that the pier was restored by Antonius Pius. A common, but very erroneous impression, owing probably to the fact of the pier now being called Ponte [bridge] di Caligula, is that it was connected with the ponton [sic] bridge which that emperor threw across the bay of Baiae in order that, clad in the armor of Alexander the Great, he might there celebrate his insane triumph over the Parthians.”
Indeed,
photos from that period (below, right) show the
pier/sea-wall of Pozzuoli to be low and jagged,
essentially what is left of the old Roman structure
(seen in the above image) after many centuries of
neglect. (Sources differ as to how many arches the
original Roman pier had.) After a century of talk
about rebuilding the pier into a more modern
structure, it wasn't until the early 1900s that this
was done. Dvorak (sources, below) reports in 1904: Pozzuoli. Photo, Roberto Rive, c. 1880
(The modernizing work
was, indeed, finished and was, as noted, redone in the
1980s.) Roman engineers built differently than modern
ones. A modern seawall stops waves completely; the
Romans, however, built separate piers (in this case,
joined by arches) that were close enough to break the
main force of the waves but still let sufficient water
pass through. Without modern dredging equipment, this
had the advantage of letting currents sweep through
the harbor and keep the port from silting up.
Perhaps the most interesting thing in the whole harbor was the small island off the end of the pier (seen in the image at the top). It was covered with buildings and has disappeared completely; it is probably the one mentioned by the Greek historian Pausanias in the second century AD:
 Much of the western part of
the bay, off of Baia, has been studied and made
available in the new museum
in the Aragonese castle off of Baia; those
waters are also now an "underwater archaeology park,"
but I don't know the extent to which such efforts have
extended to Pausania's "artificial island." Also,
there was apparently a second harbor at Puteoli.
Ancient sources mention it and in the early 19th
century, engineers planning to rebuild the harbor
spoke of the existence of an extensive network of
piers offshore below the old acropolis to the east of
the main harbor.notes: *1:
The arched pier is reproduced in Dvorak (below) and
labelled "from a Roman picture after Bellori" in
reference to Fragmenta
vestigii veteris Romae by J.P. Bellori
(1615-1696), a French archaeologist. (back
to text) sources: —Dvorak,
John J. and G. Mastrolorenzo (1991). The Mechanisms of
recent vertical crustal movements in Campi
Flegrei, Southern Italy. The Geological
Society of America, Special Paper 263. Boulder,
Colorado. |
"The
largest and best-known Roman breakwater is that at
Puteoli, commonly called the Bridge of Caligula.
This great work consisted of fifteen tall piers of
concrete, some of 52 feet square, others smaller,
rising from 49 feet of water to some 16 feet above
the surface. The tops of the piers were connected
by arches, and the whole work was often referred
to as the "opus pilarum," or "moles puteolanae."
Unfortunately, but little of the old work is now
to be seen, for the harbour is sheltered by
a solid sea-wall, which has been constructed by
filling up the spaces between the ancient piers.
The work was originally proposed by Carlo Fontana,
and, in spite of the adverse criticism of Fazio,
will soon be finished."