Puteoli
Pute'oli
(Graecized Ποτίολοι [ Ac 28:13], but in classical Greek often Πουτεόλοι; a Latin word, from puteus, a well, on account of the wells or sources of a volcanic origin with which it abounded), a maritime town of Campania, in Italy, on the northern shore of the bay of Naples, and about eight miles north-west from that city. Here Paul landed on his way to Rome (Ac 28:13). As above noted, it derived its name from its tepid baths, and the district in which they exist is now called Terra di Lavoro. The earlier name of Puteoli, when the lower part of Italy was Greek, was Diccpiarchia; and this name continued to be used to a late period. Josephus uses it in two passages (Ant. 17:12, 7; 18:7, 2); in a third (Life, 3), he speaks of himself (after the shipwreck which, like St. Paul, he had recently gone through) as διασωθεὶς εἰς τὴν Δικαιαρχίαν, ἣν Ποτιόλους Ι᾿ταλοὶ καλοῦσιν. So Philo, in describing the curious interview which he and his fellow Jewish ambassadors had here with Caligula, uses the old name (Leglat. cad Caium, ii, 521). Its Roman history may be said to have begun with the Second Punic War. It was a favorite watering-place of the Romans, as its numerous hot-springs were judged efficacious for the cure of various diseases. It was also the port where ships usually discharged their passengers and cargoes, partly to avoid doubling the promontory of Circeium, and partly because there was no commodious harbor nearer to Rome. Hence the ship in which Paul was conveyed from Melita landed the prisoners at this place, where the apostle stayed for a week (Ac 28:13). In connection with St. Paul's movements, we must notice its communications, in Nero's reign, along the mainland with Rome. The coast road leading northward to Sinuessa was not made till the reign of Domitian; but there was a cross-road leading to Capua, and there joining the Appian Way. SEE THREE TAVERNS. The remains of this road may be traced at intervals; and thus the apostle's route can be followed almost step by step. We should also notice the fact that there were Jewish residents at Puteoli. We might be sure of this from its mercantile importance; but we are positively informed of it by Josephus (Ant. 17:12, 1) in his account of the visit of the pretended Herod-Alexander to Augustus; and the circumstance. shows how natural it was that the apostle should find Christian "brethren" there immediately on landing. From this port it was that the Roman armies were despatched to Spain, and here the ambassadors from Carthage landed. It had the privileges of a colony from a very early period, and these were successively renewed by Nero and Vespasian, the latterbestowing on the place the title of Colonia Flavia. Puteoli was at that period a place of very great importance. We cannot elucidate this better than by saying that the celebrated bay a part of which is now "the bay of Naples," and in early times was "the bay of Cumo," was then called "Sinus Puteolanus." The city was at the north-eastern angle of the bay. Close to it was Baiae, one of the most fashionable of the Roman watering-places. The emperor Caligula once built a ridiculous bridge between the two towns; and the remains of it must have been conspicuous when St. Paul landed at Puteoli in the Alexandrian ship which brought him from Malta. SEE CASTOR ANND POLLUX; SEE MELITA; SEE RHEGIUM; SEE SYRACUSE. In illustration of the arrival here of the corn- ships we may refer to Seneca (1 p. 77) and Suetonius (Octan. 98). No part of the Campanian shore was more frequented. The associations of Puteoli with historical personages are very numerous. Scipio sailed from hence to Spain. Cicero had a villa (his "Puteolanum") in the neighborhood. Here Nero planned the murder of his mother. Vespasian gave to this city peculiar privileges, and here Hadrian was buried. In the 5th century Puteoli was ravaged both by Alaric and Genseric, and it never afterwards recovered its former eminence. It is now a fourth-rate Italian town, still retaining the name of Pozzuoli.
The remains of Puteoli are considerable. The aqueduct, the reservoirs, portions (probably) of baths, the great amphitheatre, the building called the temple of Serapis, which affords very curious indications of changes of level in the soil, are all well worthy of notice. But our chief interest here is concentrated on the ruins of the ancient mole, which is formed of the concrete called Pozzolana, and sixteen of the piers of which still remain. No Roman harbor has left so solid a memorial of itself as this one at which St. Paul landed in Italy. Here, too, was the statue erected to Tiberius to commemorate his restoration of the Asiatic cities destroyed by an earthquake, and of which statue the pedestal with its inscription remains almost entire to this day. See Mazzella, Situs et Antiquitas Puteol. in Graevius and Burnam, Thesaur. 9 pt. 4; Romanelli, Viuggio a Pozzuoli
⇒Bible concordance for PUTEOLI.
(Naples, 1817); Jorio, Guida di Pozzuoli (ibid. 1830); Lowenigh, Die Landschajt Pozzuoli (Aachen, 1841); Lewin, St. Paul, 2, 218 sq. SEE ITALY; SEE PAUL.
