Paestum Temples

The temples of Paestum, in the Cilento area of southern Campania, are among the best-preserved Doric temples anywhere in the Greek world. Founded around 600 BC by Greek colonists from Sybaris as Poseidonia, the city later passed to the Lucanians and then became the Roman colony of Paestum in 273 BC, before slow decline and abandonment in the early Middle Ages left it forgotten in malarial marshland until rediscovery in the 18th century. Three great temples stand in a row across the archaeological zone. The so-called Basilica, the oldest, dates to around 550 BC and is dedicated to Hera, distinctive for its nine-column facade and pronounced column entasis. The Temple of Neptune (or Hera II), built about 460 BC, is the most complete, retaining both pediments and its double tier of interior columns, and is often considered the finest Doric temple in mainland Italy. The Temple of Athena (formerly called the Temple of Ceres), from about 500 BC, mixes Doric and early Ionic elements and later served as a Christian church. Between the temples lie the Roman forum, an amphitheatre, the comitium, and the foundations of the Greek agora with its underground shrine and the circular ekklesiasterion assembly place. The site is set in open meadows that fill with wildflowers in spring, and a stretch of the ancient defensive walls, around 4.7 km in circuit, still encloses the town. Excavation and study have continued since the Bourbon era, with ongoing conservation by the heritage park authority addressing the porous local travertine from which the temples are built. Presented in situ and arranged chronologically from Greek through Roman phases, the visible remains today are dominated by their Archaic and Classical Greek architecture, allowing visitors to walk among temples older than the Parthenon and trace the layered history of a Magna Graecia city.