Science: Diggers

From about the time Julius Caesar was a problem child, Baiae, a few miles north of modern Naples, was Rome's ritziest seaside resort. There the patricians, attracted by the hot springs which gushed from the hillsides, built their sumptuous villas on terraces cut in the slope. Elaborate baths (hot and cold swimming pools with steam rooms, massage and floor shows) cleansed and entertained vacationing senators and consuls. The place acquired a highly questionable reputation. The dramatist Terence wrote: "At Baiae one never knows what the night will bring," and the poet Propertius warned...

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