Paestum

Region: Campania

Province: Salerno (SA)

Altitude: 18m/59ft

Situation

The site of Paestum lies in southern Campania, in a plain nearby the Gulf of Salerno, a bay on the Tyrrhenian Sea. With its ruined temples and its cemeteries, this site possesses the finest remains of Greek architecture on the mainland of Italy.

History

Paestum was founded by Greeks from Sybaris under the name of Poseidonia about 600 B.C. In the fourth century B.C. it passed into the hands of the Lucanians, and in 273 B.C. became a Roman colony.

In the time of Augustus it already had a bad name for the malaria-ridden marshland which surrounded it, and after the devastation of the region by the Saracens in the ninth century its inhabitants abandoned the town, taking with them a relic of St Matthew which had according to tradition been preserved in Paestum since the fourth century, and founded a new settlement on the neighboring hills at Capaccio, of which Paestum with its few modern houses is now a part.

The deserted town was despoiled of its columns and sculpture by the Norman leader Robert Guiscard, and thereafter was forgotten until the 18th century, when there was a revival of interest in classical Greek art.