Ancient World Seminar: Lien Foubert (Nijmegen): A journey to the edge of Europe: the rise and fall of the spa resort at Baiae

Abstract

Since Antiquity, seaside resorts have figured among the most popular sites of leisure and tourism on the European continent. In many ways these sites expressed and supported converging trends in European culture and society. Spa resorts brought together visitors from a range of nationalities in a shared culture of health, pleasure and recreation. This paper aims to explore how the Mediterranean spa resort of Baiae in the Bay of Naples functioned as a significant cultural setting where visitors and local actors shaped, experienced, discussed shared cultural values in a changing world throughout the ages.

About the speaker

Lien Foubert is assistant professor at the Department of History, Art History and Classics of the Radboud University Nijmegen. Her research focuses in particular on the representation of women in the Graeco-Roman world, using both literary and non-literary sources. After completing a dissertation on the public and private roles of Julio-Claudian women, she now concentrates on the subject of travelling women in antiquity.