Augustus Takes the Cure

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In 23 B.C. the Roman emperor Augustus should have felt on top of the world. He had conquered most of western Europe, and the might of his Roman legions stretched deep into North Africa and the Near East. Culturally, he was presiding over a golden age, represented by some of the greatest poets who ever lived: Horace, Virgil and Ovid. The empire was largely at peace, too, with the emperor busily transforming Rome into a new Athens. And he was no longer to be called Octavian but Augustus, the revered one.

But Augustus wasn’t happy. Doubled over with pain so severe he thought he would die, he summoned his personal physician, Antonius Musa. The emperor believed 052he had an abscessed liver, and Musa had a precise plan for treatment. He insisted that Augustus abandon the traditional hot-water springs, such as the trendy spa at Baiae on the Bay of Naples, and instead visit such cold-water springs as the fontes clusini (springs of Chiusi), some 90 miles northwest of Rome, where he might pursue a special diet and take the waters.

Indeed, as historian Frank Romer of the University of Arizona has discovered in the works of the Roman writers Seneca (c. 5 B.C.-65 A.D.) and Pliny 053the Elder (23–79 A.D.), a number of people in the emperor’s circle engaged in cold bathing and took cold drinks (including, perhaps, ice-cold wine and water). Horace (65–8 B.C.), who was interested in spa treatments because he suffered from sore eyes, relates that Musa developed a program of curing people at cold-water springs through immersion of the head and stomach (Epistles 1.15). Horace never states just how cold the water was in the springs of Chiusi, but it is doubtful that the old or infirm could have stayed for long in the “icy water” of “Clusium’s springs.”

Augustus followed Musa’s advice, took the cold-water treatment at Chiusi, and was cured—as if by magic. The emperor was so appreciative that he let Musa wear gold rings (as a former slave, Musa would normally have been forbidden such signs of wealth and power) and erected a statue of him next to one of Asclepius, the god of healing. (This story is told by the Roman biographer Suetonius [75–160 A.D.], who does not say where the statues were.) The jubilant Augustus even went so far as to exempt all doctors from taxes.

For a couple of centuries now, curious explorers and scholars have been searching for the healing fontes clusini in the region of the modern town of Chiusi. Although numerous sites have been proposed (San Casciano Bagni, the Fucoli and Sillene areas of Chianciano Terme, and so on), none of these locations has either cold-water springs or appropriate ancient ruins.

In 1990 the Italian archaeologist Giulio Paolucci (now the director of the new Chianciano Archaeological Museum) began surveys in the town of Mezzomiglio, about 10 miles northwest of Chiusi. Roughly horseshoe-shaped, Mezzomiglio has a central park area of several acres that extends down the slope of a hill (the park has been left undeveloped so that the town could retain its picturesque setting and views). Although early investigators had reported that the park contained Roman ruins, no one had explored them thoroughly—largely because local interest was heavily focused on spectacular Etruscan tombs being uncovered in the area.

Almost immediately, Paolucci found old structures, though he didn’t know how old. Whenever he attempted to dig a sounding, however, water would surge up and flood the work. Nonetheless, after sinking several probes, he realized he had found a large group of ancient ruins, including a small Roman bath with a stamped tile that dated to 114 A.D. But Paolucci was not interested in mounting a full-scale excavation of the site; he was occupied with the nearby excavation of Etruscan cemeteries (Paolucci’s astonishing discoveries form the principal part of the collection of the Chianciano Archaeological Museum). So he, along with the town mayor, Maria Teresa Fé, and cultural officer, Roberto Betti, decided to find outside help to investigate the strange, waterlogged ruins at Mezzomiglio.

In 1994 I received a phone call from Giuseppina Borghetti, deputy assistant to the vice president for cultural affairs of Tuscany. I could have this site, she said, if I would drop everything and fly over immediately to 054meet with Tuscany’s director of antiquities, Francesco Nicosia, and dignitaries from the town of Chianciano. The town would help pay for the excavation, I was told, if we could begin digging the following summer.

Since 1995 a team from the University of Arizona, under my direction, has been exploring Mezzomiglio—and our finds suggest that this site is the best candidate for the magical springs of Chiusi mentioned by Horace and visited by Augustus.

We began by excavating what was clearly the site’s principal structure, which has become known locally as the Vasca (Pool). First, however, we had to solve the problem of the surging water. Once we isolated the area from which the water seemed to be coming, we dug a deep channel and laid large sections of plastic pipe to 055channel the water away from our excavations. We also drained water from our excavation areas with hoses and pumps.

Although all this sounds frightfully expensive, it was accomplished for under $2,000. The pumps were borrowed, and the plastic tubing was donated by an Italian road project that was never completed. The channel was dug quickly with a bulldozer, which we got at a greatly reduced price because one of our volunteers was a bulldozer operator. To our amazement, these measures actually worked, and the entire site dried out. Now we were ready to begin serious work.

The Vasca, we soon learned, was a large rectangular enclosure, measuring about 85 feet by 120 feet. Around its interior perimeter ran a 12-foot-wide portico, which was enclosed by the structure’s wall on the outside and a colonnade on the inside (the wall and columns supported a roof over the portico, which remained open to the interior). The interior was an enormous pool with a small temple (sacellum) at the middle of the western side. Visitors to the Vasca entered at the eastern side of the building; they then probably disrobed in the portico and stepped into the pool at either the northeastern or southeastern corner.

The pool, which was carefully paved with inverted roof tiles, reached its greatest depth, 3 feet, directly in front of the sacellum. A drain at the base of the east wall, across from the sacellum, allowed water to escape from the pool. About 3.5 feet above the drain, an overflow pipe was set into the wall to maintain the pool’s water level—the same principle used in modern sinks and bathtubs.

The sacellum, roughly 20 feet wide by 10 feet deep, had a roof supported by two anterior columns. Inside was an exedra, that is, a square recess for a cult statue. 056Just who or what was represented there is still a mystery, though we found a rear leg of a two-thirds life-size marble statue of a horse in the pool beside the temple.

We suspect that bathers entered the pool at one corner of the pool, say the southeast, and exited at the other corner, say the northeast. In this way, the pool could have accommodated a continuous flow of visitors, who immersed themselves, perhaps made a vow or pledge at the sacellum and then beat a hasty retreat from the frigid water.

As we exposed the front wall of the sacellum, spring water suddenly emerged from between the rocks. It seems likely, then, that the sacellum was deliberately built at the point where spring water flowed into the pool (and still flows today, at a considerably lesser rate than in antiquity).

The original site of the Vasca may well have been selected by the Etruscans, who had a sophisticated knowledge of hydraulics. They would have chosen this site because of its chilly spring waters and because the area is covered with a layer of fine kaolinitic clay, which holds water without need of mortar.

That the spring was known even before the Roman conquest of the area is suggested by a huge retaining wall just to its north. Constructed of enormous ashlar blocks, this structure has parallels with walls in Umbria, Latium and Tuscany usually dated to the fourth or third century B.C. As early as the sixth century B.C., moreover, the Etruscans were building small temples dedicated to local deities; often these temples were placed in front of large pools.^a

The Vasca itself was constructed using largely Roman techniques, and recent excavations suggest that its walls—or at least sections of them—were rebuilt a number of times. Portions of the southwestern wall were built using an early form of the opus incertum technique, in which large, irregularly shaped stones are used as facing over a concrete core. The kind of crude opus incertum construction found in the Vasca is characteristic of Roman architecture in the second and early first century B.C. A section of the northeast wall, on the other hand, was built carefully in the opus quasi-reticulatum technique (often datable to between 80 and 50 B.C., though there are later examples), in which smaller, pyramid-shaped stones are arranged as facing in roughly diagonal rows.

Curiously, the core of the Vasca’s walls was not made of Roman concrete. Rather, it consisted largely of sand and waterproof clay, characteristic of Etruscan architecture.

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The multiple phases of the wall (as indicated by the different building styles and the multiple rebuildings) suggest that the structure had a long life, possibly beginning as early as the second century B.C. This early dating is supported by the discovery of numerous fragments of late-Hellenistic, black-glazed ceramics scattered in disturbed fills around the structure. The final major rebuilding phase probably came toward the end of the reign of the emperor Trajan (98–117 A.D.), as indicated by 31 roof tiles, each stamped “VOPETHASTCOS” (Latin shorthand for Vopiscus and Hasta, consuls of Rome under Trajan), which were turned upside-down and used as pavement tiles on the pool’s bottom.

During this last rebuilding phase, the site was expanded to the east and southeast, becoming a small village-like complex of buildings and streets. A water distributor (castellum)—consisting of a box with a concrete floor that would receive water and then distribute it through several openings—channeled water from the Vasca’s spring to a new set of traditional Roman baths, 060which included a cold room (frigidarium) fitted out with small pools, a warm room (tepidarium) and a hot room (caldarium) heated by circulating hot air under the floor. Other buildings sprung up directly across from the Vasca, though we are not certain how they were used. One of them, a fairly well-preserved building that we call Structure A, had a broad flight of steps leading down into a large room with a mortared floor and a large storage jar stuck right into the ground. Perhaps it was here, on the main square of the complex, that bathers checked in and settled their accounts.

In the second century A.D., the vogue for cold-water spas waned in Rome, and the Vasca complex slipped into neglect. As late as the fourth century, periodic attempts were made to keep the spring going and shore up the structure. The central area of the pool was kept clear to allow the spring water to flow, principally to supply drinking water for cattle—but not to be used as a bath. The lovely paving tiles were thus trampled on and broken up. By about the middle of the fifth century, the site had become buried by clay and sand falling down the hill that rises above the spring.

If our Vasca was indeed the site of the fontes clusini known to Horace and Augustus, it remained forgotten until the 18th century, when scholars again began to search for the waters that had cured an emperor—and the spring remained blocked up until 2001, when we reopened it.

Did the springs of Chiusi really have curative powers, or was Augustus’s physician, Antonius Musa, a charlatan? Chemical analysis shows that water from the spring is unusually high in calcium sulfate. If taken internally in some quantity, the water would have functioned as an industrial-strength laxative. Had the emperor been suffering from severe constipation, instead of an abscessed liver, 061these waters would have cleaned him out like a torpedo!

Prolonged immersion might have been helpful, too. Recent studies in England have shown that immersing the body in water creates significant pressure on the lower body and compresses blood from the limbs to the trunk. It lowers blood pressure and facilitates the excretion of water, salt and urine. Someone suffering from liver problems—such as cirrhosis, known for its salt retention—might benefit from prolonged immersions.

The ancient Vasca complex, whether or not the springs of Chiusi, lies in a region now internationally known for its spas. Surrounding it are the famous spas of Chianciano Terme, where thousands of visitors each year drink the waters, follow special dietary regimes, immerse themselves, have massages and take beauty treatments. Indeed, the motto of the town today would have been suitable in Augustus’s time: Chianciano, fegato sano, “It’s Chianciano for a healthy liver!”