La topografia sulle bottiglie di Baia

Piero A. Gianfrotta,

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Abstract

This paper reviews the glass Flasks with Baia, founded at Rome (now in Warsaw), Populonia, Ampurias and a fragment from Astorga, Spain. The identification proposed by Kolendo of the two big domed buildings with fish-farms plans represented in bird’s eye view is refused.

In fact, the vertical rotation of a structure that in the reality had an horizontal development is – to say the least – unusual: the fish-farms emerged just a little bit from the sea-level and it was impossible to recognize the exact overall shape. Furthermore, the notice palatium on Rome flask would be not supplied with a representation. Instead, the palatium is present in a coherent manner with the reality. It spread to all the Baia Gulf, in a similar way with Domus Aurea in Rome.

On Rome flask there is an allegoric female figure: she is lying and she has a cup in her left hand. Her iconography comes from a figured group with three elements, generally concerning in sea scenes, widespread from the second half of third till the fifth century on carved glasses, sarcophagi and mosaics. A good comparison with Baia flask is in on a mosaic from the baths of Sidi Ghrib (Tunisia). It represents a standing male figure pouring wine in a patera offered by a female figure lying on a kline, just as on the Rome flask. The male figure is identified with the name Gaurus, the mount overviewing Baia near to Puteoli; the mosaic has been connected with the verses of a letter of Symmachus (owner of a villa on Gaurus mount), dated to 375 A.D., concerning the Puteoli gulf with mythological connections to Bacchus, to the Nereids Thetis et Baiae sorores.

The production of the flasks belongs to the fourth century and it seems interrupted with the increase of bradyseism and of barbarian ravages.