The name of Baia is connected to Greek mythology, to the legendary journey of the Greek hero Ulysses, who buried his friend Bajos in this marvellous bay.

Since ancient times Baia was extolled and visited for its natural beauty, for its climate and, mainly, for its thermal springs and so Horace declared no one inlet in the world shines wore than Baia (nullus in orbe sine Bajis praelucet amoenis).

The Roman aristocracy in time had its monumental villas, built there which were finely furnished and, almost all of them, were equipped with fish-ponds for the breeding of moray eels, a culinary delicacy of the Roman era.

At the end of the Roman Republic, Baia was chosen as an Imperial and patrician resort.

Sergius Orata, a very clever architect and business-man of the first imperial period, channelled the many, hot thermal springs to heat different rooms of the thermal baths equipped for the cure of the body.

The Emperor Nero, who greatly loved Baia and its surroundings, enlarged the original thermal equipment making it a thermal palace, which was expanded along a slope, descending to the sea.

Because of the bradyseism, an ascending and descending motion of the earth’s crust, some areas of the imposing thermal baths of Baia are covered by the sea.

However the ruins shows well the magnificence and the advanced architectural and technology, which can be compared to the most famous buildings in Rom such as the Pantheon