Oplontis
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Oplontis was a town near Pompeii, in the Roman Empire. On August 24 AD 79, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried it under large levels of ash. It is today the location of the Villa Poppaea, the villa of the wife of Emperor Nero, which was excavated in the mid-twentieth century and is open to the public. A second villa, the Villa of L. Crassius Tertius, was discovered in 1974, 250m east of the Villa of Poppaea, during the construction of a school. It was named following the finding of a bronze seal bearing the aforementioned term.
The name Oplontis most likely refers to the baths in the area of Oncino, but today the name commonly covers the group of villas in the middle of the modern town of Torre Annunziata, also known as Torre Nunziata in the local Neapolitan dialect.
A large number of artifacts come from Oplontis are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.