Bible Word Study
Ποτίολοι
potioloi · Puteoli
Ποτίολοι
Puteoli
Definition
Ποτίολοι (Puteoli) was a major Roman harbor city located on the Bay of Naples in Italy. In the New Testament, it is the port where the Apostle Paul and his companions landed after their voyage from Malta on their journey to Rome (Acts 28:13). The city served as a crucial commercial hub, especially for the grain trade with Alexandria, Egypt. As a significant port, it represented the gateway to Italy and the heart of the Roman Empire for travelers from the East.
Biblical Usage
This word is used only once in the New Testament, in Acts 28:13. It functions as a proper noun identifying the specific location where Paul's ship docked. The usage is purely geographical, providing a key detail in the narrative of Paul's journey to stand trial before Caesar.
Etymology
The word is a direct transliteration of the Greek Ποτίολοι, which itself is a Hellenized form of the Latin name 'Puteoli'. The Latin name is thought to derive from 'puteus', meaning 'well' or 'spring', likely referring to the area's sulfur springs. The Greek New Testament simply adopts the well-known place name without translation.
Semantic Range
Puteoli was one of the most important commercial ports in the Roman Empire, famous for its harbor constructed by Emperor Augustus. For a reader in the 1st century, mentioning Puteoli would immediately convey a sense of arriving at a bustling, cosmopolitan gateway to Italy. Paul's landing there signified his safe arrival at the center of the imperial world after a perilous journey, marking a pivotal point in the spread of the gospel to the capital.
Word Details
How this works
Definitions are from the Dodson Greek-English Lexicon, supplemented by STEPBible TBESG data (CC BY 4.0). Concordance and morphology data are derived from the interlinear Bible.
Full methodology & sources →References
- Abbott-Smith, G. (1921) A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. [Public Domain]
- Brown, F., Driver, S.R. and Briggs, C.A. (1906) A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Public Domain]
- Tyndale House, Cambridge (n.d.) Tyndale Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (TBESG). STEPBible. Available at: https://www.stepbible.org. [CC BY 4.0]
- Tyndale House, Cambridge (n.d.) Translators Formatted full LSJ (TFLSJ). STEPBible. Available at: https://www.stepbible.org. [CC BY 4.0]
- Thayer, J.H. (1889) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. [Public Domain]
- Gesenius, W. (1846) Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. [Public Domain]
- Dodson, J. (2010) Greek Lexicon. Biblical Humanities. [CC0]