Intro - Campi Flegrei on-line

Puteoli is a famous termal seaside place. It is situated on a hill that dominates the gulf a long the shore to Baia and Naples (14km from Puteoli).
This city is the most important industrial centre of Flegreian Fields in metalmechanic, electromachanic, chemical, ship building and textile, sectors.
At the beginning it was one of sea ports of the powerful Cuma, that around 550 B.C, to face the Etruschians, accepted a colony of Greek refugees escaped from Sano.
The original name of dikaiarchia (right governament) would date back to that situation.
After the end of the second punic’s war a colony of 300 Roman families settled there and Puteoli became the principal commercial port of Rome thanks to its geographical position.
Ships sailing from Sicily, Africa and east countries stopped there.
After the fast economic and demographic development, the city stretched to the hill and Lucrino Lake. Under Augustus, the economic life of Puteoli had another impulse.
The urbanistic of the city was reconstructed, widened and organized.
A new chapter of Puteoli’s history was made by Nerone, who gave a strong renewal to the town and, at the same time, he was the leader of a monumental reconstruction of the town.
In his plans there was an ambictious dream, that he never fulfilled:his idea to connect the gulf of Pozzuoli with Ostia through a navigable canal. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Puteolideclined and its population abandoned the town because of the Barbarian invasions and moved to Naples.
Today only few ruins of the Greek Acropolis remain