Julius Caesar had a villa built on the opposite shore to where the Temple of Diana stood, but because the outcome did not please him, he had it demolished almost completely.
It is believed that the villa was subsequently inherited by the Emperor Caligula. What is certain is that Caligula too had a house here.
A series of excavation campaigns have brought to light an imposing residential complex built in the late Republic Age on the southern slopes of the crater in the hamlet of Santa Maria. The structure had also been further refurbished in the 1st C. AD.
This may be Caesar’s villa, or it may have been the one on the edge of the crater, in the Le Piagge hamlet, which still has to be excavated.
The excavations have however established without doubt that what started out as a simple villa became a luxurious complex equipped with large cisterns, (still standing and functional), a spa and water conduits, two access roads, an exedra, a large terrace overlooking the lake which was 250 metres long with columns like those of the Sanctuary and painted niches, rooms decorated with mosaics and paintings, and walls in opus spicatum, made of inlaid polychrome stone arranged in a herringbone pattern.