PESTUM.

HISTORY OF THE CITY.

PÆSTUM, formerly named Posidonia, from Poseidon or Neptune, was an ancient city of Lucania, situated on the Sinus Pæstanus, now called the gulf of Salerno, about sixty miles south of Naples. It is said to have been occupied by the Samnites and Picentines, and afterwards by the Træzenians, Greek colonists, who had settled at Sybaris and Tarentum, who drove the old Lucanians from their city to the mountains. This spot was esteemed the most flourishing in Lucania. The mildness of its climate, and the productions of the country, continued in after ages to be the topics of praise with the Latin Poets. Martial, Virgil, Propertius, and Ovid, have celebrated its fertility and natural productions. The situation of Pæstum was most happily situated for the purposes of agriculture and commerce; placed as it was in the centre of a widely-extended plain, bounded by the rivers Silarus and Accius on the north and south, sheltered on the east by the mountain Alburnus, and open to the bay on the west. The port Alburnus was near the mouth of the Silarus. Some remains of it are said to be still

discoverable.

This port was highly advantageous to the interests of the city, and was frequented by the merchants of distant provinces. Strabo says, that Jason visited this coast in the ship Argo, and erected a temple to Juno Argiva.

During a period of more than two centuries from their first establishment, the Posidonians enjoyed a state of happiness and tranquillity in their possessions. The first serious attempt to disturb them was made by Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse, who undertook to invade the Grecian territories in Italy. Having joined his forces to the Lucanians, he gained several advantages over the several Grecian states which had united to oppose him. Being obliged to return to Sicily, without obtaining any decisive victory, he left the harrassed Greeks to contend with the Lucanian Aborigines. Posidonia fell into the power of the latter, soon after the commencement of the war between the Romans and Samnites. They retained it till the four hundred and eightieth year of Rome, when the defeat of Pyrrhus, who had been induced to assist them against the Romans, lost them Posidonia. Most of the Grecian states were soon after reduced to Roman colonies. Posidonia became a municipal town, and was inhabited by a colony sent from Rome in the four hundred and eighty-first year of the city. The new possessors changed its name to Pæstum. The Pas

tans aided the Romans against Hannibal, and combining with a Roman army in his rear, may have caused his retreat from the dreaded siege of Rome.

There is no mention made of it from this time to that of Augustus, and it then occurs only in the works of the poets. It was one of the first cities in the south of Italy that received the Christian religion. The Pæstans were from this circumstance distinguished by Saint Paulinus, as a good and virtuous people. In the ninth century it was taken by the Saracens, and when they were obliged to leave it, they plundered the city, and destroyed the dwellings.

What was spared by the Saracens, was carried off by Robert Guiscard in 1080, who stripped the temples of Pæstum, in order to decorate the church he had founded at Salernum. Pæstum after this became a very inconsiderable town, and experienced a rapid decline of its population. From the neglect of cultivation and other causes, the marshes surrounding it ceased to be drained, and the stagnant waters emitted a vapour so prejudicial to the inhabitants, that by degrees they retired to the mountains.

Thus deserted, the remains of its former importance were consigned to oblivion; and the people of Italy appear to have been ignorant of their existence, until the Baron Joseph Antonini in 1745, published a work upon Lucania,

in which he particularly dwelt upon the magnificent ruins of Pæstum.

Description of the Ruins.

THE principal ruins of the ancient city consist of the walls, the remains of three temples, vestiges of an amphitheatre, and two spots distinguished by heaps of stones, which indicate the site of buildings of some importance. Of all these, perhaps the only one which has claim to Grecian origin, is the great Temple, supposed to have been dedicated to Neptune. This, indeed, possesses all the grand characteristics of that pre-eminent style of architecture. Solidity combined with simplicity and grace, distinguish it from the other buildings, which, erected in subsequent ages, when the arts had been long on the decline, in a great degree want that chastity of design for which the early Grecian is so deservedly celebrated. There can be little doubt but that this building was coeval with the earliest period of the Grecian emigration to the south of Italy. Low columns, with a great diminution of the shaft, bold projecting capitals, a massive entablature and triglyphs, placed in the angles of the Zophorus or frize, are strong presumptive proofs of its antiquity.

This was an hypethral temple, having six columns in the front and fourteen in the flanks, including those of the angles. The upper step