Paestum — archaeological site
Image by SCAPIN from Pixabay

Paestum

  • Elevation18 m
  • 2 min read
  • 40.423° N 15.006° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • Only about 25 of the city's roughly 120 hectares have been excavated; the rest lies under private land, still unexplored.
  • The First Temple of Hera has an unusual nine columns across each end and a row of columns down the middle of its inner hall, possibly for two deities.
  • Some capitals of the First Temple of Hera still carry faint traces of their original paint.
  • The Tomb of the Diver, found on 3 June 1968, is the only Greek painting with figures from the Archaic or Classical era known to survive complete.
  • The Roman poet Virgil praised Paestum's roses, which bloomed twice a year, then a rarity among roses.
  • Paestum was the only small Italian mint allowed to keep striking bronze coins after about 89 BCE, marking them P.S.S.C., 'by decree of the Senate'.
  • The city walls stand up to about 7 metres high and 5 to 7 metres thick, and were once guarded by more than 20 towers.
  • In 1740 there was a proposal to take columns from the temples for the new royal palace of Capodimonte in Naples, but it was never carried out.
  • During the Allied landings of September 1943, Red Cross first-aid tents were pitched among the temples, which both sides treated as off-limits to bombing.
  • About 70 Archaic metopes survive from the nearby sanctuary of Hera at the Sele river, 38 of them telling the story of Heracles.

Why it is worth it

Paestum, on the plain south of Salerno, has three Greek temples in the Doric order that are among the best preserved anywhere, standing in open fields inside an almost complete ring of ancient walls. Settlers from Sybaris founded the city around 600 BCE as Poseidonia; the Lucanians took it at the end of the 5th century BCE, and Rome made it a Latin colony called Paestum in 273 BCE. Malaria and raids emptied it in the Middle Ages, which is why the centre was never built over. Piranesi's etchings of 1778 made the temples famous across Europe and fed the Greek Revival in architecture.

The oldest temple, the first Temple of Hera from about 550 BCE, was long called "the Basilica" by 18th-century scholars who took it for a Roman building. Right beside it stands the second Temple of Hera, built around 460–450 BCE and once thought to belong to Neptune; it is the most complete of the three and still carries much of its upper structure, with columns fluted 24 times instead of the usual 20. On higher ground to the north, the Temple of Athena of about 500 BCE mixes Doric and Ionic elements. Between them lie the Roman forum, a small temple to the Capitoline triad, a council chamber and the western half of a small amphitheatre; the eastern half was buried under a road built across the site in 1930. The walls run for about 4.75 km with four gates, and a walk along them shows how much of the city plan survives.

Do not skip the National Archaeological Museum next to the site. It holds the Tomb of the Diver of about 470 BCE, the only Greek painted tomb found here, with a young man diving into water on the lid and banquet scenes on the sides, as well as Lucanian tomb paintings full of horses, the Archaic metope reliefs from the sanctuary of Hera at the mouth of the Sele river, and the bronze vessels, still with traces of honey, found sealed in the underground shrine of a local hero. Paestum is part of the Cilento World Heritage Site listed in 1998, and the modern village beside the ruins is a beach resort.

Getting there

Paestum station, on the Salerno–Reggio Calabria railway, sits just outside the eastern city walls and about a kilometre from the museum, so the site is easy to reach by train from Salerno or Naples. Agropoli is about 8 km south. Salerno Costa d'Amalfi Airport (QSR) is about 23 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Salerno 6The Most Beautiful Places in Campania 29The Most Beautiful Places in Italy 279The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites in Campania 5The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in Campania 6The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Campania 7The Most Remarkable UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Sites in Italy 7The Most Remarkable Ancient Archaeological Sites in Italy 9The Greatest Ancient Archaeological Wonders in Italy 10The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders in Italy 10The Most Remarkable Ancient Places in Italy 16The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites in Italy 22The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in Italy 36The Most Remarkable Ancient Archaeological Sites 36The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Italy 44The Greatest Ancient Archaeological Wonders 52The Most Remarkable Ancient Places 78The Most Remarkable UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Sites 114The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders 149The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites 193The Greatest Archaeological Wonders 306The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

Paestum was a major ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, in Magna Graecia. The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order dating from about 550 to 450 BCE that are in an excellent state of preservation. The city walls and amphitheatre are largely intact, and the bottom of the walls of many other structures remain, as well as paved roads. The site is open to the public, and there is a modern national museum within it, which also contains the finds from the associated Greek site of Foce del Sele.

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40.42263, 15.00557per Wikidata