NAPOLI (Naples) is a very ancient city, the legend is that the earliest colonisers were of Greek origins and that the colony was named Falero (Phalernum) after a member of mythical Argonauts. Palaepolis (the oldest city) was reparably founded on Monte Echia (today Pizzofalcone) in the 9th century BC, the city changed its name in Parthenope (people of Napoli is still called Parthenopeans), name derived from the mythical Parthenope, that was a mixture of human kindness and animal aggressiveness – the face of a virgin on the body of a bird (not a fish, like in the well-known version) born of the river-god Acheloo and the Earth-mother Persephone. The Homeric Odyssey tells that Parthenope attempted in vain to seduce Ulysses, when he refused her, the mermaid committed suicide, her body was washed up among the rocks of the bay. Parthenope grew as a flourishing commercial centre, but around 470 BC, it is the beginning of its decline, then the people started to build the NEW CITY (NEAPLOS). The rigorous geometrical plan of the “new city” was exemplary in the harmonic proportion of metric ratio, perfectly adjusted to the site and laid out as a right- angle grid with clearly defined axes called cardini and decumani in Latin. The site of the ancient agorà (now piazza San Gaetano) is the heart of Napoli, nearby via San Gregorio Armeno, it contents monuments covering 2,500 years of history. Close the cloister of the Theatine convent lie the remains of a theatre dating back to 62 AD. Below the Gothic cathedral of San Lorenzo (between piazza San Gaetano and San Gregorio Armeno), it is possible visit the excavations of Roman steers with shops leading to the forom, forming a dense archaeological stratification unrivalled in Europe, under Roman walls it is possible to see Geek walls. The fifth century city had its limits defined by stout square walls made of tufa blocks, these walls were reinforced in the forth century BC, with new sections using a different system of construction involving two parallel lines of inter-linked tufa blocks; remain of the original walls were found in Piazza Calenda and in Piazza Bellini. The original Neapolis remains the heart of Napoli, the city started to grow around it. The population started to grow, so many people had to emigrate, going all around the world, and may be some of it named the place where went to live Napoli, Naples, Neapolis, Neòpolis.
