The settlement at Stabiae arose from as early as the 7th century BC due to the favourable climate and its strategic and commercial significance as evocatively documented by materials found in the vast necropolis discovered in 1957 on via Madonna delle Grazie, situated between Gragnano and Santa Maria la Carità.

The necropolis of over 300 tombs containing imported pottery of Corinthian, Etruscan, Chalcidian and Attic origin clearly shows that the town had major commercial contacts.

[5] The necropolis, covering an area of 15,000 m2 (160,000 sq ft), was used from the 7th to the end of the 3rd century BC and shows the complex population changes with the arrival of new peoples, such as the Etruscans, which opened up new contacts.

[9] It then became part of the Nucerian federation, adopting its political and administrative structure and becoming its military port, although it enjoyed less autonomy than Pompeii, Herculaneum and Sorrento; in 308 BC, after a long siege, it was forced to surrender in the Samnite wars against the Romans.

The earliest Roman evidence is coins from Rome and Ebusus found in the sanctuary of Privati dating back to the 3rd century BC probably brought in by merchants.

[10] During the Punic Wars Stabiae supported Rome against the Carthaginians with young men in the fleet of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, according to Silius Italicus who wrote: The location of the early city of Stabiae is still to be identified but it was most probably a fortified town of some importance, since when conflict with the Romans reached a head during the Social War (91–88 BC), the Roman general Sulla did not simply occupy the town on 30 April 89 BC but destroyed it.

He found five paved streets intersecting at right angles, the forum, a temple on a podium, a gymnasium, tabernae with arcades, pavements and small private houses.

In 62 AD the city was hit by a violent earthquake that affected the whole region, causing considerable damage to the buildings and creating the need for restoration work, which was never finished.

The archaeological remains at Stabiae were originally discovered in 1749 by Cavaliere Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre, an engineer working for King Charles VII of Naples.

[35] The year 2006 was eventful: following clearance on the Varano hill, rooms belonging to the Villa of Anteros and Heracles, already discovered by the Bourbons in 1749, but reburied and lost, were brought to light.

In July the RAS revealed the upper peristyle of Villa San Marco and in its south-east corner Stabiae's first human skeleton was also found, probably a fugitive who fell victim to falling debris.

It is a paved road that connected the town of Stabiae with the seashore below: across this artery is a gate to the city and along the walls are a myriad of graffiti and small drawings in charcoal.

In May 2010 a villa dating to the first century was discovered during the work to double the railway track of the Torre Annunziata-Sorrento line of the Circumvesuviana, between the stations of Ponte Persica and Pioppaino.

From 2011 to 2014, Columbia University and H2CU (Centro Interuniversitario per la Formazione Internazionale) have been excavating in the Villa San Marco, investigating it as a Roman elite structure and the pre-79 AD history of the site.

The villa has an even larger second peristyle on the southern side, partially excavated, approximately 140m long, with arcades supported by spiral columns which collapsed during the 1980 Irpinia earthquake: the ceilings are painted with scenes depicting Melpomene, the Apotheosis of Athena etc.

Another feature is its private tunnel system that links the villa from its location on the ridge to the sea shore, which was probably only between 100 and 200 metres away from the bottom of the hill in Roman times.

The "Tuscan" atrium, dating back to the late Republican age, is paved with white-black mosaic and has wall frescoes, often female figures and palmettes on a black and red background attributable to the third style.

On the centre of the rear wall is the fresco found in 1950 of the myth of Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos in the arms of Hypno escorted by Dionysus (represented with hawk eyes).

The villa consists of two areas, the oldest around the peristyle which was built around the first century BC and the later part, probably widening or emerging out of an existing structure, dating back to the imperial age.

The south side is a pseudoportico adorned with columns resting on a wall, behind which lies the baths that includes a caldarium with a bathtub, a tepidarium also with tub and garden and a laconicum with domed roof and a kitchen.

One hypothesis is that it is instead a valetudinarium[50] (health spa or a sort of domestic hospital and infirmary for sick slaves) to allow people to take advantage of the famous spring waters of Stabiae.

The garden area is bordered to the south by the semicircular wall, while on the north is a 140m long cryptoporticus which runs parallel to a colonnade on a slightly lower level.

The site was lost until 2006 when a group of volunteers clearing the Varano ridge witnessed a landslide which brought to light various structures, including a doorway and the hinge of a door.

In the niche was the figure of a young Julio-Claudian woman with a brooch, perhaps Livia or Antonia Minor, adorned with curly hair and now held in the Naples museum (inv.

The rooms used for the storage of the crop and tools for working the land are paved in clay, while the residential areas such as the triclinium, finely decorated with paintings in Flavian art, has tiled floors.

The villa has a rectangular plan with a courtyard in the centre with six columns frescoed in red, a dolium, a well and a basin with a canal that served as a drinking trough for animals.

From the courtyard there are a series of rooms such as the kitchen with oven, a latrine, an apotheca[61] (upstairs store-room) where fruits were collected and laid on a straw bed[62] and a torcularium (a shed or out-house where the presses for oil or wine were worked[63]), which in turn gives access to a large frescoed room with a yellow plinth and red stripes while the upper part has green bands on a dark background with drawings of flowers and leaves.

The villa was built around a courtyard with a windowed cryptoporticus on the north and arcades on the south and east sides, while in the centre there is a tufa altar and a well for water collection.

where, in addition to the cultivation of grapes (wooden poles were found for the vineyard), horses and cattle were bred, cereals were grown, and the production cycle was completed with the mill and cooking in the ovens.

Large lead pipes and hydraulic valves, found near the villa and along the roads (for example in the current Piazza Trivione and throughout the Carmiano area), are testimony to the extent of services in use.