VILLA OF TIBERIUS

Where?   Sperlonga, Italy

What?     Forgotten summer house of a Roman emperor, spilling into the bright blue sea

TO GAZE out from this grotto, to the sun-sparkled Mediterranean, is to look with the eyes of legends. From the cool, water-dripped shadows, you behold the same view seen by Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who paused here on his way back home from Troy; you peer out like Emperor Tiberius, who feasted and frolicked in this coastal hidey-hole, to escape from the Senate and Rome. Yet, for millennia, this cavern remained concealed. The town around, itself named after caves just like it, kept this particular subterranean treasure a hidden secret ...

Emperor Tiberius, adopted son and successor of Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, ruled from AD 14 to AD 37. By all accounts he wasn’t handsome, popular or particularly pleasant – Pliny the Elder called him tristissimus hominum (the gloomiest of men). Nor, it seems, did he much relish his role. As his reign progressed, Tiberius distanced himself from the capital, preferring to spend his time in southern Italy, shirking responsibility for life as a morally questionable recluse. He built several villas, including a dozen on the island of Capri; the ruins of three still remain. But it was also known that Tiberius had a summer residence on the mainland, somewhere between Naples and Rome, along the ancient coast road; contemporaneous historians wrote of his ‘villa called the Grotto’, allegedly near the town of Terracina. But no one knew exactly where.

Fast forward to 1957, and the builders of a new seaside highway made an incredible discovery. Mere metres from the old town of Sperlonga, at the base of Monte Ciannito, they found an archaeological bounty: the remains of rooms, a courtyard, pools, ponds and grandiose statuary fit for a king.

Sperlonga is a picturesque jumble of alleys, roof terraces and whitewashed houses draped with bougainvillea that spills down to two magnificent golden beaches. Its original name, Spelunca, derives from the Latin speluncae, meaning ‘sea caves’, many of which are gnawed into the golden Tyrrhenian coast. Evidence of human habitation, dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic era, has been found here. Evidence that Sperlonga is the site of Amyclae, the mythical Spartan city that mysteriously disappeared some 3,000 years ago, is thinner on the ground, though that hasn’t stopped the claims.

The Sperlonga villa had been in Tiberius’s family for several generations. It was reportedly a sumptuous multi-storey residence, spreading up the hillside and incorporating a natural sea cave that was converted into an opulent banqueting hall, decorated with marble panels, mascheroni (grotesque masks) and imposing statues. Here, Tiberius and his guests would loll on rock-hewn beds and dine on an artificial island set within an ornamental, fish-filled pool; it’s said that food was floated across on miniature boats.

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the sixth century, locals used the then-ruined villa as a refuge from Saracen attacks. The entire town was razed in 1534 by the pirate Barbarossa, while nature took its course, burying Tiberius’s bolthole beneath mounds of sand. Sperlonga’s fortunes changed briefly in the mid-20th century. Just as its precious remains were unearthed, so the town was being discovered by the glamorous jet set, with actors such as Brigitte Bardot drawn to this sunny and spectacular easy escape from Rome.

Sperlonga is no longer so in vogue, but the villa remains captivating. The site lies at the end of a long, lovely beach, marked by a cavern so gaping it seems impossible it was ever lost. Adjacent to the site, a museum now displays the treasures found inside the grotto, including huge reconstructed sculptures representing stories from the Odyssey: the assault of Scylla, Odysseus lifting Achilles’s corpse, the blinding of the cyclops Polyphemus. Little decoration remains within the grotto itself. Here, you’re free to roam, following the low stone walls, walking around the ponds and entering the cave itself – a natural nick in the limestone that once held some of the most powerful men in the world.