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PAESTUM (Gr.Iloveu3wvia; mod. Pesto)

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 448 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PAESTUM (Gr.Iloveu3wvia; mod. Pesto) , an See also:ancient See also:Greek See also:city in Lucania, near the See also:sea, with a railway station 24 M. S.E. of See also:Salerno, 5 M. S. of the See also:river Silarus (Salso). It is said by See also:Strabo (v. 251) to have been founded by Troezenian and Achaean colonists from the still older See also:colony of See also:Sybaris, on the Gulf of See also:Tarentum; this probably happened not later than about 600 B.C. See also:Herodotus (i. 167) speaks of it as being already a flourishing city in about 540 B.C., when the neighbouring city of See also:Velia was founded. For many years the city maintained its See also:independence, though surrounded by the hostile native inhabitants of Lucania. Autonomous coins were struck, of which many specimens now exist (see See also:NUMISMATICS). After See also:long struggles the city See also:fell into the hands of the Lucanians (who nevertheless did not expel the Greek colonists) and in 273 B.C. it became a Latin colony under the See also:Roman See also:rule, the name being changed to the Latin See also:form Paestum. It successfully resisted the attacks of See also:Hannibal; and it is noteworthy that it continued to strike See also:copper coins even under See also:Augustus and Tiberius.

The neighbourhood was then healthy, highly cultivated, and celebrated for its See also:

flowers; the " twice blooming See also:roses of Paestum " are mentioned by See also:Virgil (Geor. iv. 118), See also:Ovid (Met. xv. 708), See also:Martial (iv. 41, 10; vi. 8o, 6), and other Latin poets. Its See also:present deserted and malarious See also:state is probably owing to the silting up of the mouth of the Silarus, which has overflowed its See also:bed, and converted the See also:plain into unproductive marshy ground. Herds of buffaloes, and the few peasants who See also:watch them, are now the only occupants of this once thickly populated and See also:garden-like region. In 871 Paestum was sacked and partly destroyed by Saracen invaders; in the 11th See also:century it was further dismantled by See also:Robert Guiscard, and in the 16th century was finally deserted. The ruins of Posidonia are among the most interesting of the Hellenic See also:world. The earliest See also:temple in Paestum, the so-called See also:Basilica, must in . point of See also:style be associated with the temples D and F at See also:Selinus, and i* therefore to be dated about 570-554 B.C.' It is a See also:building of unique See also:plan, with Dine columns in the front and eighteen at the sides, 44 ft. in See also:diameter. A See also:line of columns runs down the centre of the See also:cella. The columns have marked See also:entasis, and the flutings end in a semicircle, above which is generally a See also:torus (always present in the so-called temple of See also:Ceres).

The capitals are remarkable, inasmuch as the necking immediately below the See also:

echinus is decorated with a See also:band of leaves, the arrangement of which varies in different cases. The columns and the architraves upon them are well preserved, but there is nothing above the See also:frieze existing, and the cella See also:wall has entirely disappeared. Next in point of date comes the so-called temple of Ceres, a See also:hexastyle peripteros, which may be dated after 540 B.C. The columns are all See also:standing, and the See also:west and See also:part of the See also:east See also:pediment are still in situ; but of the cella, again, nothing is 1 The dating adopted in the present See also:article, which is in See also:absolute See also:contradiction to that given in the previous edition of this See also:work, is that given by R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, See also:Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien and Sicilien (See also:Berlin, 1899), 11-35.

End of Article: PAESTUM (Gr.Iloveu3wvia; mod. Pesto)

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