It was a simple vicus in Carthaginian territory at the time of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius (2nd century AD).

[5] The Roman politician Salvius Julianus is thought to have been born in the village and it may be due to him that Pupput became an honorary Colonia under the Emperor Commodus (185-192).

[2] According to an inscription preserved in the Bardo National Museum in Tunis which was dedicated to the 4th century Emperor Licinius,[7] the Roman name of the city was "Colonia Aurelia Commoda Pia Felix Augusta Pupput".

[9] Puppi was the seat of an ancient Christian episcopal see of the Roman province of Africa Proconsolaris, a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Carthage.

[12] To explain this discrepancy, some authors, such as Noël Duval, have suggested that boundary changes resulted in a "conurbation" of the city with Siagu (now Ksar Ezzit[4][13] in the east of the town of Bir Bouregba), which was located in Africa Proconsularis, a few kilometers to the north.

[2] Some of Pupput's remains were partially unearthed in the early 20th century by battalions of the French army, but in the late 1960s the site was endangered by the development of hotel complexes along the Tunisian coast.

[2] The residential quarter and baths were preserved as an archaeological park, but the remains of the central complex of monuments and the public buildings were buried beneath hotel foundations.