(the modern Puzzuoli), a maritime city of Campania, was situated on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Baiae. A colony from the neighbouring Greek city of Cumae founded it. It was originally called Diecearchia, and it afterwards acquired the name of Puteoli, from the wells (putei) in the vicinity. But the town was of no note in the history of the country until the second Punic war. At that time the Romans began to take advantage of its finely-sheltered harbour. They first used it in their warlike operations against Hannibal. After the war was finished, they made it the emporium of their eastern commerce. A powerful stimulus was in consequence given to the prosperity of the city. Its shores and vicinity, after the lapse of several years, presented a pleasing picture of thriving opulence. Some ships bound for the Turdetanians in Spain, with Italian produce, were hoisting their sails in the bay; others from Alexandria were unloading their cargoes of corn and costly wares along the arch-supported mole which ran out into the sea. From the extensive docks rose the huge skeletons of the vessels which were being built for the purpose of transporting the large obelisks from Egypt. Conspicuous among the houses on the shore, and surrounded with busy traffic, stood the factories of merchants from the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Berytus; while, studding the hills in the background were seen the palatial villas of the Roman patricians, and among others the famous Academia of the great Cicero.

This prosperity seems to have continued during the entire period of the supremacy of the Romans. On the dismemberment of the empire, however, Puteoli began to sink in importance, and a series of dire calamities accelerated its decline. Alaric and Genseric plundered it in the fifth century. The devastation was completed not long afterwards by an earthquake and the subsidence of the land. It was re-peopled in the eighth century only to be assailed once more with severe disasters. In the ninth century the Lombard dukes of Benevento reduced it. In 1198 the eruption of the volcano of Solfatara damaged it considerably; and in 1538 the upheaval of Monte Nuovo caused it to suffer again under volcanic agency. The Puzzuoli of the present day is a poor unhealthy town of 10,000 inhabitants. The only traces of its ancient grandeur are some ruins, consisting of a building commonly called the temple of Serapis, a range of baths, a temple of Neptune, a mole, an amphitheatre, and a theatre.