Naples

Naples was founded about 600 BC as Neapolis ("New City") by Greek settlers close to the more ancient Palaepolis. Both towns were extensions of Greek colonies on the nearby island of Pithecusa (now Ischia) and at Cumae on the adjacent mainland. The principal Greek city of Campania southern Italy it was only of modest size and importance during the Roman period. Earlier occupation of this fertile location framed on one edge by Mount Vesuvius and by the sulphurous plains of the 'Phlegraean Fields' on the other is extremely likely. It was taken over by the Romans in 326 BC. Among the traces that still survive of the Greco-Roman city stretches of Greek city walling have been identified in several areas and a portion of 6th-7th century BC necropolis located in the Pizzofalcone region. A 700-meter tunnel on the Via Puteolana joining Naples and Puteoli was originally constructed by Augustus' architect Cocceius. Under the empire Naples and its environs served as a center of Greek culture and erudition and as a pleasure resort for a succession of emperors and wealthy Romans whose coastal villas extended from Misenum on the Gulf of Pozzuoli (the ancient Puteoli) to the Sorrentine peninsula. The Museo Archeologico Nazionale contains an extensive collection of Campanian antiquities and much material from Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Greek neapolis, ‘new city’ (a name common in antiquity). The principal Greek city of Campania, southern Italy, but probably only of modest size and importance during the Roman period. Tradition gives the settlement as a daughter colony founded by Greeks from Cumae, and a 7th-century bc date looks plausible. Earlier occupation of this fertile location, framed on one edge by volcanic Mount Vesuvius and by the sulphurous plains of the ‘Phlegraean Fields’ on the other (see Cumae), is extremely likely, but evidence for this, as for the Greco-Roman city itself, will have been largely obliterated by the intensive development and redevelopment of modem Sources mention a distinction between Palaiopolis (‘old city’), possibly the original Cumaean settlement and to be located in the harbour area, and Neapolis, a newly laid-out and grid-planned larger zone, to which emphasis then switches. Although Naples long preserved its Greek language and institutions, it seems as if any independent outlook was extinguished by the Roman takeover in 326 BC. In the Roman period, Naples was eclipsed by neighbouring Puteoli (Pozzuoli), becoming first a municipium and then a colonia. Among the traces that still survive of the Greco-Roman city, stretches of Greek city walling have been identified in several areas, and a portion of 6th-7th century bc necropolis located in the Pizzofalcone region. A 700-metre tunnel on the Via Puteolana, joining Naples and Puteoli, was originally constructed by Augustus’ architect, Cocceius. The identification of an Augustan-period columbarium on the same road with the tomb of the Roman poet Virgil is intrinsically unlikely. The Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Piazza Cavour) contains an extensive collection of Campanian antiquities, and much material from Pompeii and Herculaneum.