Venosa was founded in 291 B.C. by the Romans who conquered the area after defeating the Samnites. The name of the city can probably be linked to the goddess Venus, to whom the Romans dedicated the colony.

In the course of time the city underwent reorganizations of the territory, in particular with regard to the distribution of cultivable areas, and therefore was deduced again both in 200 BC and in 43 BC. to meet the needs before the new settlers, and later veterans linked to the protagonists of the second triumvirate.  The inhabitants of Venosa participated in the Social War and obtained the recognition of Roman citizenship from 89 BC and also in the first century B.C. the city gave birth to the poet Horace.

Venosa had a period of economic development between the second century BC, when it was facilitated in exchanges and interactions with other centers thanks to the construction of the Appian Way that connected Rome to Brindisi, and the second century A.D. when instead there was the opening of the Via Traiana that cut it out, excluding and damaging it in the commercial system.

The city then began a path of decay that followed in parallel with that of many other centers of the empire until its fall, resizing and transforming according to medieval urbanism.

It is interesting to note, however, in late ancient times, from the fourth century A.D. the presence of an important Jewish community in Venosa, witnessed by the discovery of epigraphs and especially by the catacombs near the hill of Maddalena, hypogeum complex for burial use, extremely interesting, rich in inscriptions in Greek, Latin and Hebrew characters that testify to the history of this community and integration in the Roman social and administrative system, as well as the particularities of funeral customs.