The legend wants Amalfi to have been founded by Hercules in name of his beloved nymph, Amalphi. Hercules wanted to bury her in the most enchanting place on earth in which, to testimony of his great love, he founded a city with her name.

An historical hypothesis, sustains instead, that Amalfi draws its origins from Roman families on their way to Constantinople, crushed in a storm in the gulf of Policastro; they would have so founded one "Melphes", the actual Melfi then transferred more to north, took abode in the actual Amalfi, calling it with the name "Á.-Melphes". As matter of fact on the city symbol there is the wrinting: descendant from roman nobles

The first definite news about Amalfi goes back to 533, at the time of the Gothic war when, with the victory of Narsete over Teia, Amalfi passed under the dominion of the Byzantine empire belonging to the dukedom of Naples. Submitted to the Byzantines, it became a commercial trade center between the east and southern Italy.