Le terme di M. Licinio Crasso Frugi a Baia

In the sea between Baia and Pozzuoli off Lake Lucrino, the “Secca Fumosa” is formed by a thick group of submerged pilae in opus caementicium, where a hot spring rises in the seabed. The pilae supported a very large platform forming a small island where the baths of M. Crasso Frugi (cos. in 64) very probably must have been. Pliny (n. h. 31, 5), Pausania (VIII, 7, 3) and possibly Seneca (Ep. 122, 8) made mention of them. This small artificial island can be identified with one painted on a wall in the villa San Marco at Stabiae. Also at Pompeii, Crasso Frugi was proprietor of elaborate bathing establishments supplied with sea and fresh water (CIL X, 1063). related to Pisones, he died in the last years of Nero’s reign.