The origins of the city of Naples are rooted in legend. The chief protagonist is the Parthenopean Siren, a mythical, fascinating creature which for centuries, was said to resemble a bird, but with the delicate facial features of a young girl. In Antiquity, many shipwrecks occurred off the Island of the Sirens, (believed by some to be the Isle of Li Galli), which lies in front of the coast at Positano. This was apparently because sailors would be bewitched and disturbed by the irresistible song of the island's inhabitants (the sirens), causing them to lose control of both themselves and their ships. It was only Ulysees, the hero of Ithaca who managed to escape this fate, by forcing his crew to plug their ears with wax and then tying them to the mainmast of the fragile hull, thus saving the ship and all its equipment from being wrecked in a disastrous storm.

History books tell us that the Greeks arrived in Naples in stages. In the 9th century B.C., they arrived on the island of Pithecusa (Ischia); in the following century, they arrived on the island of Cuma, and it was only in the 6th century B.C. that they founded Parthenope on the isle of Megaride, then extended to Monte Echia (the Pizzafalcone hill), which was more of a commercial centre than a city. In 470, the inhabitants of Cuma founded a real city in the east (on the site of the current historic city centre), which they called Neapolis (new city), in order to distinguish it from Palepolis (old city).

The urban layout of the city of Neapolis echoed the Grecian layout consisting of the âcardo❠and âdecumano❠road system. The cardo is a narrow street running from north to south, while the decumano is wider and runs from east to west. This layout is still visible today as you walk down Via dei Tribunali and Via Benedetto Croce, Decumano Superiore and Via San Biagio dei Librai, Decumano Inferiore.

The city of Naples, with its magnificent scenery, attracted many intellectuals, including Cicero, Horatio and Pliny the Elder, who wrote about the terrible eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 B.C. which destroyed Pompeii and Ercolano. The great Latin poet Virgil also lived in Naplesâhe chose to stay in the delightful Mergellina district where the so-called Tomb of Virgil and the nearby Tomb of the Leopards can now be found.