History

In the first half of the eighth century BC original Greek city-states began to start colonies overseas, because of population growth and trading. The Greek colonies were situates around the west-coast line so they could maintain direct communications with the Tyrrhenian Sea. They formed independent political entities with their own individuality. The most extensive colonisation was that of Southern Italy and Sicily. The coast of Southern Italy shared similarities with the Greek homeland regarding to climate and soil.

Sybaris was an ancient Greek colony located in what is now the Gulf of Taranto, southern Italy. It was founded by a group of Achaeans and Troezenians in the 8th century BCE. The city was known for its wealth, luxury, and hedonistic lifestyle. The inhabitants of Sybaris were often stereotypically depicted as living in excessive luxury and indulgence, which gave rise to the term "Sybarite" to describe someone who seeks pleasure and comfort above all else.

However, due to a nasty quarrel, the Troezenians were expelled and driven out of the city. Aristotle further states that this expulsion was “the cause of the curse that fell on the Sybarites” and thus the beginning of the end of this mighty and wealthy colony. The Troezenians then supposedly fled north and founded a colony by the name of Poseidonia.The city soon became a major agricultural and maritime center that traded with the Etruscans and survived longer than Sybaris itself, which was destroyed in 510 B.C.

The settlement of Poseidonia was strategically located close to the sea and on a travertine platform rising slightly above the coastal plain. It was enclosed by a wall circuit, rectangular-trapezoid in plan. 

Poseidonia had access to fertile farm land for agriculture and fresh water for drinking and irrigation. There was plenty of timber and clay available. The geographical location was well situated for commerce; as the city was located at the end of the overland route from the south through the Vallo di Diano. The city served as a coastal port community but did not have its own anchorage, so ships had to be dragged to the beach. Today, because of sedimentation of the Sele River and the formation of beach sand ridges, it is located about a mile inland. 

The Greek Poseidonia flourished for some 200 years with the construction of city walls, towers and gates, three still standing, remarkably well preserved, Doric temples and a Greek agora with all its well-known functions and features. At its zenith, the city of had about 13,000 inhabitants. 

The city prospered from its foundation until the second half of the fifth century BCE, when it was taken gradually and peacefully over by the Lucanian rule around 400 BC, who maybe changed the name Poseidonia in Paistom or Paistos. 

In the end of the fifth century indigenous Italic people, the Lucanians, entered the city and brought with them new practices and traditions but on the whole lived side by side with the Greeks. The grandeur of its sacred buildings, the extension of its urban space, the prestige of the Heraion at the mouth of the Sele mean that, until the birth of Neapolis, Paistom was the most important meeting point for the Italians of the Ionian side of the peninsula with the great currents of international trade in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

This lasted for approximately a century and a half until, in the wake of the expanding Republican Rome, a Latin colony was founded at the place in the year of 273 BC and the city got its Roman name, Paestum. 

Paestum came to enjoy intense cultural and commercial exchange with the rest of the Greek world as well as non-Greek populations like the Etruscans to the north and other Italic tribes from the hinterland. The Etruscan influence combined with the Greek and local Poseidonian style can for example be seen in the very famous fifth century tomb known as Tomba del Tuffatore, the Tomb of the Diver. 

Later, in 273 BCE, a Roman colony was established at Lucanian Poseidonia, which was thence forward known as Paestum. During the Roman period, the city underwent a major transformation, which drastically altered the Greek built landscape, especially in the forum area.

Along with the foundation of the Roman colony the city was adorned with the typical elements of a Republican town. Yet the Greek temples and sanctuaries continued to be looked after and used and some of the Greek, Lucanian and Roman buildings and concepts stood and prospered side by side.

Malaria from rising groundwater due to deforestation of the area gradually pushed the population towards the mountains, causing the decline of the city.

In 133 the via Popilia, running to the east of Paestum, was constructed and as a result of this the city was unfortunately cut off from principal routes connecting the city to the rest of the peninsula.

In the sixth-seventh century CE, the city was abandoned. 

In the 11h century, Roger the Norman partly stripped the temples of its marble, while Robert the Guiscard moved the sculptures to the Cathedral of Salerno. Although much stone has been stripped from the site, large numbers of buildings remain detectable by their footings or the lower parts of their walls, and the main roads remain paved.