extensive submerged foundations of buildings off the southern extremity of Posilipo have been identified with those of the old city.
Parthenope, as well as Dikearchia, was formed as a new colony from Cumae, and was so called from a legendary connexion of the locality with the siren of that name, whose tomb was still shown in the time of Strabo. Parthenope was situated where Naples now stands, upon the splendid natural acropolis formed by the hill of Pizzofalcone, and defended on the land side by a fosse which is now the Strada di Chiaja, and a massive wall, of which remains may still be traced at the back of the existing houses. To the colonists of Parthenope there came afterwards a considerable addition from Athens and Chalcis, and they built themselves a town which they called Neapolis, or the “new city,” in contradistinction to the old settlement, which in consequence was styled Palaeopolis or the “old city.” The name of Parthenope became lost, and the city of Palaeopolis fell into gradual decadence.
In 328 B.C. the Palaeopolitans having provoked the hostility of Rome by their incursions upon her Campanian allies, the consul Publilius Philo marched against them, and having taken his position between the old and the new city, laid regular siege to Palaeopolis. By the aid of a strong Samnite garrison which they received, the Palaeopolitans were long able to withstand the attacks of the consul; but at length the city was betrayed into the hands of the Romans by two of her citizens. Neapolis possibly surrendered to the consul without any resistance, as it was received on favourable terms, had its liberties secured by a treaty, and obtained the chief authority, which previously seems to have been enjoyed by the older city. From that time Palaeopolis totally disappeared from history, and Neapolis became an allied city (foederata civitas)—a dependency of Rome, to whose alliance it remained constantly faithful, even in the most trying circumstances. In 280 B.C. Pyrrhus unsuccessfully attacked its walls; and in the Second Punic War Hannibal was deterred by their strength from attempting to make himself master of the town. During the civil wars of Marius and Sulla a body of partisans of the latter, having entered it by treachery (82 B.C.), made a general massacre of the inhabitants; but Neapolis soon recovered, as it was again a flourishing city in the time of Cicero. It became a municipium after the passing of the lex Julia; under the empire it is noticed as a colonia, but the time when it first obtained that rank is uncertain—possibly under Claudius.
Though a municipal town, Neapolis long retained its Greek culture and institutions; and even at the time of Strabo it had gymnasia and quinquennial games, and was divided into phratriae after the Greek fashion. When the Romans became masters of the world, many of their upper classes, both before the close of the republic and under the empire, from a love of Greek manners and literature or from indolent and effeminate habits, resorted to Neapolis, either for the education and the cultivation of gymnastic exercises or for the enjoyment of music and of a soft and luxurious climate. Hence we find Neapolis variously styled—by Horace otiose Neapolis, by Martial docta Parthenope, by Ovid in otia natam Parthenopen. It was the favourite residence of many of the emperors; Nero made his first appearance on the stage in one of its theatres; Titus assumed the office of its archon; and Hadrian became its demarch. It was chiefly at Neapolis that Virgil composed his Georgics; and he was buried on the hill of Pausilypus, the modern Posilipo, in its neighbourhood. It was also the favourite residence of the poets Statius (A.D. 61) and, Silius Italicus (A.D. 25), the former of whom was a Neapolitan by birth.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Neapolis suffered severely during the Gothic wars. Having espoused the Gothic cause in the year 536, it was taken, after a protracted siege, by Belisarius, who turned aside an aqueduct, marched by surprise into the city through its channel, and put many of the inhabitants to the sword. In 542 Totila besieged it and compelled it to surrender, but being soon after recovered by Narses, it remained long a dependency of the exarchate of Ravenna, under the immediate government of a duke, appointed by the East Roman emperors. When the Lombards invaded Italy and pushed their conquests in the southern provinces, the limits of the Neapolitan duchy were considerably narrowed. In the beginning of the 8th century, at the time of the iconoclastic controversy, the emperor Leo the Isaurian having forced compliance to his edict against the worshipping of images, the Neapolitans, encouraged by Pope Gregory III., threw off their allegiance to the Eastern emperors, and established a republican form of government under a duke of their own appointment. Under this régime Neapolis retained independence for nearly four hundred years, though constantly struggling against the powerful Lombard dukes of Benevento, who twice unsuccessfully besieged it. In 1027, however, Pandulf IV., a Lombard prince of Capua, succeeded in making himself master of it; but he was expelled in 1030 by Duke Sergius, chiefly through the aid of a few Norman adventurers. The Normans, in their turn, gradually superseded all powers, whether Greek, Lombard or republican, which had previously divided the south of Italy, and furthermore checked the Saracens in the advances they were making through Apulia.
From the date at which the south of Italy and Sicily were subjugated by the Normans the history of Naples ceases to be the history of a republic or a city, and becomes that of a kingdom, sometimes separate, sometimes merged, with the kingdom of Sicily, in that of the Two Sicilies. The city of Naples henceforth formed the metropolis of the kingdom to which it gave its name, owing this pre-eminence to its advantageous position on the side of Italy towards Sicily, and to the favour of successive princes (see Naples, Kingdom of).
Bibliography.—Ackerman, Naples and the Campagna Felice (1816); Craven, Tour through the Southern Provinces of Naples (1821); R. T. Günther, Earth Movements in the Bay of Naples (Oxford, 1905); Rolfe and Ingleby, Naples in 1888 (London, 1888); Black, Naples in the Nineties (1897); Arthur Norway, Naples, Past and Present (London, 1901); Miss Jex Blake, The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London, 1896). (E. N.-R.)
NAPLES, KINGDOM OF, the name conventionally given to the kingdom of Sicily on the Italian mainland (Sicily beyond the Pharos), to distinguish it from that of Sicily proper (Sicily on this side of the Pharos, i.e. Messina), the title of “King of Naples” having only actually been borne by Philip II. of Spain in the 16th century (“King of England and Naples”) and by Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat in the 19th. The history of the kingdom of Naples is inextricably interwoven with that of Sicily, with which for long periods it was united as the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
For the earlier history of Naples and its territory, as a republic and a dukedom, see Naples above, and for the coming of the Normans see Sicily and Normans. It is sufficient here to state that the leaders of the house of Hauteville, Robert Guiscard and Richard of Aversa, in 1059 did homage to Pope Nicholas II. (q.v.) for all conquests they had made both in the island and upon the mainland, and that in 1130 Roger de Hauteville (Roger II. as “great count” of Sicily) assumed the style of king as Roger I. In this way the south of Italy, together with the adjacent island of Sicily, was converted into one political body, which, owing to the peculiar temper of its Norman rulers and their powerful organization, assumed a more feudal character than any other part of the peninsula. The regno, as it was called by the Italians, constituted a state apart, differing in social institutions, foreign relations, and type of home government, from the commonwealths and tyrannies of upper Italy. The indirect right acquired by the popes as lords paramount over this vast section of Italian territory gave occasion to all the most serious disturbances of Italy between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, by the introduction of the house of Anjou into Naples and the disputed succession of Angevin and Aragonese princes.
Roger I. was succeeded in 1154 by William I. “the Bad,” who died in 1166, being succeeded by his son William II. “the Good,” on whose death in 1189 the crown passed to his illegitimate son Tancred. After the death of Tancred the emperor Henry VI., of the house of Hohenstaufen, who by his marriage with Constance The Hohen-staufens.or Costanza d’Altavilla, daughter of Roger I. (d. 1154), was
