Pæstum was a town of Lucania, called by the Greeks Posidonia and Neptunia, from its being situated in the bay. It was then called Sinus Pæstanus; now the Gulf of Salerno.
Obscurity hangs not only over the origin, but over the general history of this city. The mere outlines have been sketched, perhaps, with accuracy; but the details are, doubtless, obliterated for ever.
In scenery Pæstum yields not only to Baiæ, but to many other towns in the vicinity of Vesuvius; yet, in noble and well-preserved monuments of antiquity, it surpasses any city in Italy; the immortal capital alone excepted.
The origin of the city may be safely referred to remote antiquity; but those are probably in the right, who would fix the period at which the existing temples were erected, as a little posterior to the building of the Parthenon at Athens. But even this calculation leaves them the venerable age of twenty-two centuries; and so firm and strong are they still, that, except in the case of extraordinary convulsions of nature, two thousand two hundred and many more years may pass over their mighty columns and architraves, and they remain, as they now are,—the object of the world’s admiration.
Whatever age we may ascribe to the temples, certain it is that the city cannot be less than two thousand five hundred years old.
It was founded by a colony of the Dorians, who called it Posetan; a Phœnician name for the God of the Sea, to whom it was dedicated. Those settlers were driven out by the Sybarites, who extended the name to Posidonia. The Sybarites were expelled by the Lucanians; and these, in turn, were expelled by the Romans, who took possession of it (A.C. 480). From this time the poets alone are found to speak of it. It was, nevertheless, the first city of Southern Italy, that embraced the Christian doctrine. In 840, the Saracens, having subdued Sicily, surprised the city, and took possession. The question now arises, to whom was Pæsium indebted for its temples? To this it has been answered, that, as the ruins seem to exhibit the oldest specimens of Greek architecture now in existence, the probability is, that they were erected by the Dorians.
“In beholding them,” says Mr. Eustace, “and contemplating their solidity, bordering upon heaviness, we are tempted to consider them as an intermediate link between the Egyptian and Grecian monuments; and the first attempt to pass from the immense masses of the former, to the graceful proportions of the latter.”
“On entering the walls,” says Mr. Forsyth, “I felt the religion of the place. I stood as on sacred ground. I stood amazed at the long obscurity of its mighty ruins. They can be descried with a glass from Salerno; the high road of Calabria commands a distant view; the city of Capaccio looks down upon them, and a few wretches have always lived on the spot; yet they remain unnoticed by the best Neapolitan antiquaries.”
The first temple[103] that presents itself, to the traveller from Naples, is the smallest. It consists of six pillars at each end, and thirteen on each side. The cella occupied more than one-third of the length, and had a portico of two rows of columns, the shafts and capitals of which, now overgrown with grass and weeds, encumber the pavement, and almost fill the area of the temple:—
———The serpent sleeps, and the she-wolf Suckles her young.