Ottaviano was in Roman times a hamlet of houses within a vast estate (praedium Octaviorum) belonging to the gens Octavia, Augustus' family.

Ottaviano was in Roman times a hamlet of houses within a vast estate (praedium Octaviorum) belonging to the gens Octavia, Augustus' family.

The remains of the Roman era were buried by successive eruptions of Vesuvius, but the ruins and tombs have been unearthed in excavations in various parts of the country.

During the Angevin rule of Naples, in 1304, the village was put to fire and sword by Carlo di Lagonessa by order of king Charles II, because of the killing of a regional officer ("superintendent of the woods") and his escort by the brothers John and Roberto de Marrone.

[3] Ottaviano in the 1980s became painfully famous for being the general headquarters of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, a powerful Camorristic organization headed by Raffaele Cutolo.