Finds of statues and inscriptions in the area of Corso Umberto and piazza N. Amore during levelling undertaken by the Reclamation Society had suggested the existence of prestigious public monuments. The agonistic nature of many inscriptions linked to Olympic-type games instituted by the Emperor Augustus at Neapolis in 2 A.D., suggested that the coastal strip in front of the ancient town was the site of the gymnasium, stadium and the hippodrome.

The excavation for the Duomo station confirmed the presence of an important temple building immediately outside the Greek walls, which ran from the beginning of via Duomo on piazza N. Amore. The urban expansion outside the Greek walls seemed to have taken place at the beginning of the 1st century A.D. and occupied an emerged beach which had formed before the 3rd century B.C. Of the temple the brick built podium, surrounded by an external ambulatory paved with a mosaic of large marble tesserae, belonging to a restoration datable to between the 3rd-4th century A.D. was preserved. A large staircase with marble balustrades was built along the short western side of the podium the result of a more serious restoration. The imposing marble architectural decoration and a number of sculptures suggested that the temple was of Julio-Claudian date. Incorporated within the interior of the cult building was an earlier structure of which the mosaic pavement with hexagons of small black and white tesserae was preserved, datable to the beginning of the 1st century A.D.

The building was probably abandoned at the end of the 4th-beginning of the 5th century A.D. The collapse of the decoration occurred around the mid 6th century A.D.
Shortly afterwards the ancient edge of the Greek walls was restored, whose remains were incorporated into an imposing curtain of quadrangular tufa blocks. Found at the beginning of via Duomo, it can be ascribed to the restoration of the fortifications by Narsete. The area was thus destined for use as a necropolis which developed between the end of the 6th and the 10th century A.D.