PUTEOLI, an ancient town of Campania (mod. Pozzuoli, q.v.), Italy, on the northern shore of the Bay of Puteoli, a portion of the Bay of Naples, from which it is 6 m. W. The city was probably founded under the name of Dicaearchia by a colony of Samians from Cumae about 52o B.C., before which Misenum was the original port. In 215 the Romans introduced a garrison of 6,000 men and Hannibal besieged it in vain in 214. In 194 a Roman colony of 30o men was established. Puteoli be longed to the tribus Palatina, thus breaking the Pule (the only other exception is Turris Libisonis [q.v.] which belonged to the Colluia) that municipia and coloniae were not enrolled in the four urban tribes. The lex parieti faciundo, 105 B.C., relating to build ing works in front of the temple of Serapis, shows that Puteoli had considerable administrative independence. Sulla retired to Puteoli after his resignation of the dictatorship in 79. Cicero had a house in Puteoli itself, and a villa on the edge of the Lucrine lake (q.v.), and many other prominent men of the republic possessed country houses near by. (See BATAE ; AVERNUS; LUCRINUS LACUS; and MISENUM.) In A.D. 61 St. Paul landed here, and spent seven days before leaving for Rome (Acts xxviii. 13). Vespasian gave the town part of the territory of Capua, and installed more colonists —whence it took the title Colonia Flavia.
The remains of Hadrian, who died at the neighbouring town of Baiae, were at first deposited at Puteoli, and Antoninus Pius erected a temple to his memory on the site of Cicero's villa. It was mainly, however, as a great commercial port that Puteoli was famous in ancient times. It exported iron from Elba, mosaics, pottery, perfumes, pozzolana earth (taking its name from the place), glass cups engraved with views of Puteoli, mineral dyes, etc., but its imports were considerably greater. During the Punic Wars it was a naval port, but in the latter part of the 2nd century B.C. it became the greatest commercial harbour of Italy and we find Lucilius about 125 B.C. placing it next in importance to Delos, then the greatest harbour of the ancient world.
The corn supply of Rome came partly through Puteoli, partly through Ostia. Seneca (Epist. 77) describes the joy of the in habitants in the spring when the fleet of corn vessels from Alexandria was seen approaching, and Statius tells us that the crew of the ship which arrived first made libations to Minerva when passing the promontory which bore her name (the Punta Campanella at Sorrento).
Claudius established here, as at Ostia, a cohort of vigiles as a fire-brigade. Brundisium was similarly protected. There was also a station of the imperial post, sailors of the imperial fleet at Misenum being apparently employed as couriers. The artificial
mole was probably of earlier date than the reign of Augustus; and by that time at any rate there were docks large enough to contain the vessels employed in bringing the obelisks from Egypt. Alaric (410), Genseric (455) and Totila (545) devastated Puteoli.
The original town of Puteoli stood on the narrow hill of the Castello. The streets of the old town preserve the ancient aline ment. There are also traces of the division of lands near the town into squares by parallel paths (decumani and sardines) at regular intervals of Roman feet, postulating as the basis of the division a square with a side of io,000 Roman feet, divided into 81 smaller squares. The market hall (macellum), generally known as the temple of Serapis, from a statue of that deity found there, was excavated in 1750. In the centre of the ancient city was a round colonnade with sixteen columns of Numidian marble (giallo antico) now in the theatre of the palace at Caserta. In the amphitheatre there were exceedingly interesting arrangements for flooding the arena, but these can only have been in use before the construction of the greater part of the subterranean portion with its cages, etc. The whole amphitheatre is 489X381 ft. ; the arena 245 X138 ft. Inscriptions record that it was built by the Colonia Flavia, i.e., not before Vespasian. In the older amphi theatre (426X312 feet), which was found in excavations for the new railway to Naples, Nero fought in games given in honour of Tiridates, king of Armenia. Remains of thermae also exist in various places. The cathedral of S. Proculus (containing the tomb of the musician Pergolesi, d. 1736) is built into a temple of Augustus, 6 columns of which, with their Corinthian capitals, still exist. Other ruins—of a circus, of tombs, villas, etc., exist.
Puteoli was supplied with water by two aqueducts, both sub terranean, one of which, bringing water from springs in the immediate neighbourhood, is still in constant use. Puteoli was reached direct by a road from Capua traversing the hills to the north by a cutting (the Montagna Spaccata), which went on to Neapolis, and by the Via Domitiana from Rome and Cumae. There was also a short cut from Puteoli to Neapolis by the tunnel of Pausilipon, made under Augustus. In 305, S. Januaris (S. Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples), bishop of Beneventum, S. Proculus, patron of Puteoli, and others, were martyrs at Puteoli, See the study of C. Dubois, Pouzzoles antique (Paris, 1907) (Bib liotheque des ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, fasc. 98). (T. A.)