Macellum of Pozzuoli

The Macellum of Pozzuoli was the market building of the Roman colony of Puteoli, now the city of Pozzuoli. The city of Dicearchia, founded by Greek refugees escaping dictatorship on Samos, was integrated into the Roman Empire as the city of Puteoli in 194 BC. The macellum was built between the late first and early second century AD, and restored during the third century AD under the Severan dynasty.

The building was in the form of an arcaded square courtyard, surrounded by two-storey buildings. Shops lined the marble floored colonnade forming an arcade with 34 grey granite columns. The main entrance and vestibule were positioned on a main axis, which lined up across a tholos in the centre of the square to the exedra for worship which had a portico formed by four large cipollino marble columns. The exedra had three niches for statues of divinities giving protection to the market, including the sculpture of Serapis. The tholos in the centre of the square was a circular building standing on a podium reached by four symmetrically placed access stairways, with sixteen African marble columns supporting a domed vault. Marine animals decorated friezes around the base of the tholos. The courtyard had four secondary entrances on its longer sides, with latrines in the corners of the colonnade and four (probable) tabernae with their own external entrances as well as access from the arcade.

References:

• Wikipedia

Address

Via Antonio Maria Gaspare Sacchini 27A, Pozzuoli, Italy

Details

Founded: 2nd century AD
Category: Prehistoric and archaeological sites in Italy