This is the reason we came all the way from Lyon to Naples, from France to southern Italy – to see the Greek temples at Paestum.
We headed
out on the one hour plus train trip, then a gentle 15-minute walk to the
Paestum archaeological site and WOW!!! Double WOW!!! Three enormous temples, built by the Greeks
around 600BCE, and the ruins of the ancient Greek/Lucanian/Roman town of Poseidonia,
established by the Greeks and later renamed Paestum by the Romans. After the Greeks built the town and the
temples, in 400BCE the Lucanians, a large southern Italian tribe, forced them
out and remained there until 273BCE when the Romans took over and renamed it
Paestum. With the fall of the western
Roman Empire and with deforestation in the Paestum area leading to silting of
the river and marshes, with consequent outbreaks of Malaria, the population
gradually left.
Fortunately
it was the marshes that preserved the city from rampage and destruction and
Paestum was not rediscovered until 1752 when major roadworks were planned for
the area. It is perhaps the best
preserved of any Greek ruins in Italy and perhaps the world.
It is not
known with any certainty who the three temples are dedicated to, although it is
thought that the largest may be to Neptune, the adjacent (slightly smaller) to
Thesauros and the smallest, some distance away, to Ceres or Athena.
We enjoyed
hours wandering in the sunshine, through the mostly well-preserved temples and
ruins of the town – the agora, the forums, baths, amphitheatre, houses, shops,
paved streets and even found some well-preserved mosaic floors. Visited the museum, saw the ‘tomb of the
diver’, with all sides bearing frescoes.
This is the first frescoed tomb to have been found dating to before
480BCE. Also saw skeletal remains that suggest that people from Asia-Minor
populated this area in prehistoric times (2400BCE-1900BCE).
We
reluctantly left Paestum and caught the train back to Naples. Mission
accomplished!
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