Flegrean Fields

History

Pozzuoli became a colony of Samos in the second part of the VI century B.C. Previously it had been known as Dikaiarchia and had fought beside Cumae against the Etruscans and the Samnites, who conquered it in the second part of the V century B.C. In the II century B.C. under the Romans it took the name of Puteoli, becoming the main strategic base for the Roman fleet in the Mediterranean until the foundation of the port of Ostia (1st century A.D.). In spite of its decline at this period, it was held in great esteem by the Emperors and particularly by Domitian who connected it to the capital by a road which took his name.

The Temple of Serapis

This is one of the major monumental testimonies to the Roman Age, also known as Serapeo. Although its name comes from the discovery of a statue to Serapis, an ancient Egyptian divinity worshipped during the Greek and Roman eras, the structure, which we can see today, was a public marketplace of considerable dimensions. On the side opposite to the main entrance there was a semicircular room containing several niches with statues. The central portion of the courtyard was occupied by a circular podium with a central fountain which was decorated with statues, a group of 16 columns in African marble. This construction dates back to the Flavian period. The temple of Serapis is of great interest to us today, apart from its exceptional architectural and archaelogical value, because it enables us to “read” at a glance the dynamics of centuries of bradyseism at Pozzuoli. On the remains of the columns which rise from the central podium and on the three large columns which remains standing of the four, one can see the holes produced by the litodomi- a type of mollusc which bores into the stone onto which it clung.