Close to the modern City Sorrento, between Capo di Sorrento and Massa Lubrense, the ruins of a huge ancient Romain villa are situated. They are attributed to Pollius Felix(Pollio Felice in Italian), who was a rich public person in the first century A.D. . The impressive stately home of him and his wife Polla became known to a poem of the ancient bard Publius Papinius Statius, which is part of his five books "Silvae", a collection of poems . They were written in the context of various social occasions. Statius was born in Neapolis (Naples today) and lived a life, in which he was always joined by a polite society, favored by the Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus (Domitian). In 90 A.D. he fellowed the invitation of his friend Pollius Felix to his luxurious villa, close to the waterfront of the Mediterranean Sea. In his poem, he describes the Villa Surrentina Pollionis Felicis as a mediator between mountains, land and Mediterranean Sea. The interesting originality of the Villa Surrentina was its uncommon fragmented architecture. Statius called the villa of Pollius Felix as a "conqueror of nature", what indicates that the huge building complex covered an area of different landscape types, being arranged like a group of islands on to of the higher rocks, interrupted by ditches and embayments. But on several levels, even watery bays were included into the whole arrangement. Single buildings were via colonnades connected with each other. Statius praises the marble splendor of the villa with the following words: "... hic Grais penitus delecta metallis, / saxa; quod Eoae respergit vena Syenes, / Synnade quod maesta Phrygiae fodere secures, / per Cybeles lugentis agros, ubi marmore picto...". Thus he describes the pattern and colors of the used marbel variety. Statius praises the abilities of Pollius' unusual buildings to dominate and shape the nature. In his poem he explains in pictures, how Pollius domesticated the sirens and dolphins: "hinc levis e scopulis meliora ad carmina Siren / advolat, hinc motis audit Tritonia tristis. / tunc rapidi ponunt flatus, maria ipsa vetantur / obstrepere, emergunt pelago doctam que trahuntur / ad chelyn et blandi scopulis delphines aderrant..." Sometimes, the literature mentions that the the archeologists could quite clearly allocate the ruins to Pollius Felix. There can be also rather often statements be found, which say that "some walls" would have stand the test of time. But this is not true. The remnants of only a part of that ancient Romain villa are three dimensionally quite well preserved. They consist of walls, the fundaments of rooms, a tunnel shaped roofed part of the building, several accesses to lower situated rooms, from which only some are well accessible, others appear as dark caves with small entrances, largely covered by more or less dense vegetation. The most spectacular part of the ruins is a basin with sea water, which is connected via a narrow arch of rocks with the open Mediterranean Sea. Ancient stairs lead into the depths until the water level. In the early afternoons in the summer time, the sun reaches the water surface and warms it up to a quite comfortable bathing temperature, often used by mostly natives for swimming. This impressive part of the villa is called "il bagno della regina Giovanna". This refers to a legend, which tells about the queen Joanna I of Naples, who purportedly used this basin as swimming pool for amorous plays. The ruins were partly restored by archaeologists, but are not properly made resistant to vandalism. A reconstruction of this whole part of buildings can be watched the historical museum of Sorrento.These parts of the ruins, which lay close to the waterside are commonly used by the natives for sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling and fishing. The still accessible ancient rooms unfortunately are misused as urinals. That's a reason why filming inside was quite uncomfortable due to uric smell. The ruins of the Villa Surrentina today represent a composition of different natural habitats for a remarkable biodiversity of plants and animals. On the surface a Mediterranean rock vegetation is colonized by flower visiting insects, such as bees and butterflies. The lizard Podarcis sicula is omnipresent. But the ruins in modern times also represent a complex system of artificial caves, which contain cave specific inhabitants, such as different species of spiders. The film footage presents macro shots of a tiny spider, which seems to belong to the taxon Nesticidae, a group of cave inhabiting spiders, which are systematically related to the cobweb spiders. I also saw representatives of the Pholcidae (known as cellar spiders). The area onshore is not protected as a nature reserve. But the underwater world close to the waterside, situated opposite to the main building of the ruins, is party protected. All copyrights of text and film belong to Stefan F. Wirth

• published: 06 Oct 2014
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