PIESTUM, POSEIDO'NIA, an ancient town of Lucania, about 4 milei S.E. from the mouth of the Silarus, near the coast of the Gulf of Paestum, now the Gulf of Salerno. The surrounding country, which is low and marshy, lies between the sea and an offset of Mount Alburnns, which divides it from the valley of the Wore, an affluent of the Silarus. The sulphureous springs which are in the neighbour hood form stagnant pools, and a stream, called Fiume Salso, which flows past the walls of Paestum, by overflowing the low grounds adds to the uuwholcsomeness of the atmosphere. The remains of Paestum are about 25 miles S.S.E. from the town of Salerno; they consist of the town walls, two flue dorie temples, another building, and a small amphitheatre.
The origin of Twatum is involved in obscurity. According to Solinue it was a colony of the Doriane; others say that it was first a Phceniebui settlement, and that it was afterwards colonised by the Dorian'; while Strabo and others ascribe its foundation or enlarge ment to the Greeks of Sybaris, who gave it the name of Poseidonia. Coins have been found at Paestum, in which the town is called PhistU7114, and some bear the double epigraph ' Phistalie' and Poseidon? Who ever were the founders, there is reason to believe that Paestum existed as a town before it was colonised by the Sybarites.
The coins of Poseidonia show by their devices, which consist of anchors, oars, rudders, and other nautical implements, that the inhabit ants were a seafaring people. Strabo says that the Lucaniana took Poseidonia from the Sybarites, and the Romans afterwards took it from the Lticanians. At the end of the war against Pyrrhus, the Romans (who called it Pmaturn which seems to be the Latirused form of the ancient name) era stated to have sent a colony to Poseidonia. (Livy, ' Epit.,' xiv.) It assisted Rome in the great contest against Hannibal; and is numbered among the eighteen Latin colonies which did not forsake Rome in the time of danger. (Liv. xxvii, 10.) It never became eminent however as a Roman colony. In the time of Strabo the city was declining and malaria was gradually creeping over its vineyards, fields, and gardens. The fall of the empire hastened the ruin of the city. Under the Lombards it became a dependency of the duchy of Benevento and subsequently an important town of the principality of Salerno. The Saracens destroyed the city in the 9th century and such of its citizens as escaped, accompanied by their bishop (for Paestum was one of the first cities of southern Italy to embrace Christianity), fied to the hills, and there founded the town of Capaccio Vecchio. This town is still the residence of the bishop, who retains the title of bishop of Paestum. The ruins of the de serted city were plundered by Robert Guiacard, who carried away its columns, bas-reliefs, and monuments to construct the cathedral of Salerno. • During the middle ages the remains of Paestum lay unnoticed, though not unknown, as some people have gratuitously stated, for the temples are conspicuous objects from almost every part of the Gulf of Salerno, and there is nothing between them and the sea to obstruct the view. When Carlo Berber', having conquered Naples
towards the middle of the 1 Sth century, became the resident sovereign, he revived the taste for the arts and antiquities. Count Felice Gazola of Piacenza, an officer in his service, admired the temples and other remains in that solitary region, and took drawings of them. Mazocchi, in 1754, in his work on the 'Heraclean Tables,' inserted a dissertation on Paestum and its history. Winkelmanu, who visited Paestum In 1758, has made some remarks on the temples in his • Anmerkungen fiber die Baukunat der Alter.' In 1767 appeared in London the first English description of Pasture, ' The Ruins of Paestum; foL, with four plates, anonymous, which was followed by Major's work, which had the same title, in 1768. There are many subsequent works on the ruins of Paestum, the most important of which is Father Antonio i Paol. ' l'acottaa) Dissertational, Italian and Latin, fol., Rome, 1784, with sixty-three plates, including Gazola's drawings, coins, and a topographical map. The Magus °ramie' of Wilkins also contains descriptions and architectural drawings of the temples.
The remains of Paestum are three temples, all m the Doric style ; they agree in their general character with other Greek temples, con sisting of a cella surrounded by external colonnade*. The larger temple, called the Temple of Neptune, is 195 feet long and 79 feet wide. It is periptcral and bexastyle, there being six columns in front and twelve on each side, and upon these 36 columns rest an archi trave and frieze. The Cella, which is open to the sky, forms an inner court, with a range of seven dorie columns on each side supporting en architrave, on which stands a second range of smaller columns of the same order. The columns of the outer peristyle are 6 feet 10 inches in diameter at the base, 28 feet 11 inches high including the capitals. The upper diameter, below the capital, is only 4 feet 9 inches. The smallest of the three temples, called the Temple of Vesta, and also the Temple of Ceres, is 107 feet long and 47 feet wide. It is also hexastyle peripteral, the peristyle being composed of six columns in front and eleven on each ode. It differs in several respects from the larger temple. The second temple, in point of size, is usually called the Basilica. It Liao a peristyle of fifty columns, nine at each end and sixteen in the flanks, exclusive of the angles. It is the only known structure that has nine columns in each front. It was divided in its breadth by an internal range of columns, three of which remain.
Beside* the ruins just noticed there remain also acme traces of the aqueduct which supplied the city with water, and of the amphitheatre. The walls, built of large polyhedric muses of travertine, are still standing. They form an irregular pentagon, three miles in circuit, and in many places twelve feet high. Remains of eight towers and four gateways may be distinctly traced. The eastern gateway is almost perfect • its arch, nearly 60 feet high, is entire. Outside the northern or Salerno gateway are several ancient Greek tombs.