Puteoli, the ancient predecessor of Pozzuoli, was an Italian city of Roman times on the coast of Campania, on the north shore of a bay running north from the Bay of Naples. The Roman colony there was established in 194 BC.

Pozzuoli was the great emporium for the Alexandrian grain ships.

The remains of a huge amphitheatre may still be seen here.

The apostle Paul is traditionally supposed having landed here on his way to Rome, from which it was distant 170 miles. Here he would have tarried for seven days (Acts 28:13, 14) and with his companions began their journey, by the "Appian Way", to Rome.

Puteoli was the location for a spectacular stunt (in 37 AD) by the eccentric Caligula, who on becoming Emperor ordered a temporary floating bridge to built using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the town to the famous neigboring resort of Baiae, across which he proceeded to ride his horse, in defiance of an astrologer's prediction that he had "no more chance of becoming Emperor than of riding a horse across the Gulf of Baiae".