The Emperor Tiberius built a villa in Sperlonga, on the coast halfway from Rome to Naples, and arranged a Group of statues inside a grotto representing episodes of Ulysses' Tales that he and his guests could admire while enjoying their meals inside this fantastic natural setting. A
ll this close to the other grotto where, according to Homer's descriptions in the Odyssey, the witch Circe had turned Ulysses' crew into pigs..
The site, hidden after centuries of full abandon, was found 1957 and the main group of statues, Ulysses blindind Polyphemus, now kept in the local archeological museum, was probably made by the same talented greek hands who sculpted the Laocoon (same style), the masterpiece in the Vatican Museums which has always impressed his visitors for his realism.
