From the Castle, we move along to Bacoli and we meet the ruins known as the Tomb of Agrippina, mother of Nero: in reality, il was not a tomb, but rather an artefact linked to the pleasant social life of the inhabitants of the seaside villa of which it was part.
Originally, it was an odeion identified by the remains of the steps and dating back to the Augustan or Julio-Claudian era. Later, between the 1st and 2nd centuries it was converted into the exedra theatre to which the current structures are connected. These were used as a space for teathrical performances and are embellished with exquisite architectural elements. The first excavation conducted in 1941 by Amedeo Maiuri allowed the building, mistakely identified  as the tomb of Agrippina during the Grand Tour, to be correctly interpreted. He brought to light most of the structures buried over the centuries by bradyseism, thus managing to discover their true origin.
We must stop over to the so-called Cento Camerelle or Prisons of Nero, a massive system with to cisterns which formed the structured and complex water system of the sumptuous villa of republican age (first century before Christ) of Ortensio Ortalo. Downstairs, you can visit several fascinating communicating tunnels dug into the tuff, of almost four meters high and covered with a thick waterproof plaster layer. The current inhabited town of Bacoli (there are two hypotheses about the origin of the name. From vacua, “deserted and wild land” and boaulia, “oxen stable”, in remembrance of the stop-over of Hercules with the herds stolen from Geryon) was developed around the church of Saint Anne and became an autonomous Municipality on the 9th of March 1919).

Once we leave Bacoli, the road leads to Capo Miseno, a promontory which, according to Virgil’s story, saw drowning the herald of Aeneas, whose name was, in fact, Miseno. Already a cumaean port, it had an important place in the Augustan military organisation. On the idea of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the naval base of the Tyrrhenian sea was installed. Between the prefects of the Classis Misenensis, we can remember Tiberius Claudius Aniceto who sent his assassins to slaughter Agrippina, Nero’s mother, and Pliny the Elder, who died during the eruption of the Vesuvius (79 b.D). Between the sumptuous villas, the one of the dictator Caius Marius dominated  and was then bought by Lucullus where the emperor Tiberius died in 37 A.D.

The past testimony of the most fascinating area is the Piscina Mirabilis: an immense basin dug during the first half of the Augustan period. It is a truly unique hydraulic work, (a 70 meters long, 25,5 meters-wide and 15 meters high cistern, the biggest one), built to collect the waters of the Serino which were intended to supply the imperial fleet quartered at Miseno. The first settlement was founded by Augustus in 31 b.C as a military colony. Along Via Dragonara, the remains of the Terme Pubbliche are still visible, as well as the Shrine of the Augustals (which dates back to Julian-Claudian age) and, on the beach, the Cave of the Dragonara, dug into the tuff and covered with opus reticulatum with an cocciopesto plaster, it is a cistern divided into five naves: a freshwater reserve for the fleet.

Miseno is a seaside town very popular with beaches and establishments.

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