Paestum has always been shrouded in mystery. It was probably founded around 650 BC by a large group of Dorians who had been expelled from the city of Sybaris, a luxurious resort across the mainland on the Ionian Sea. The Dorians named their new colony Poseidonia, after the most important of their gods; it flourished and quickly became the greatest city on the gulf of Salerno. Then in 510 BC, Sybaris was destroyed. Poseidonia languished until 390 BC, when it fell to a trible of local barbarians called the Lucanians. Legend has it that for decades the Greek inhabitants of the captive city secretly met once a year to remember the illustrious days of their forefathers.

Incredibly, although Paestum’s Temple of Hera (also called “of Poseidon”) was among the most famous cult-worship sites in antiquity, and although it is the oldest, best preserved and most beautiful Doric temple in existence today, and despite the city’s proximity to Salerno (24 miles) and Capaccio (4 miles), these majestic ruins were unknown all through the Middle ages and the Renaissance. Indeed, although scholars had been searching for them for centuries, they were not discovered until1740 and even then, not accurately described until 1779.

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