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Temple of Hera

Beside the Gulf of Salerno, 25 centuries ago stood the luxurious city of Paestum, one of many built and settled by Greek colonists along Italy’s southern shores. But Paestum was an unlucky town. Conquered first by barbarous Lucanians, then by Romans, it was periodically sacked by sea raiders, from Cilician pirates in the first century to Saracens in the ninth. In the meantime the plain became a malarial marsh (a condition not corrected until 1944). The population dwindled until the survivors, continue reading »

A group of human victim corpses of the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius

This is a much smaller site than Pompeii, mainly because it is less accessible. It lies about 27 meters below present ground level, and much of it no one is sure how much extends beneath the modern town of Ercolano (Resina). Unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum was engulfed during Vesuvius eruption by an avalanche of mud and lava that filled every nook and cranny like thick soup and then hardened to the consistency of concrete. continue reading »

A trio of the most extraordinary classical ruins in Italy lie a short distance down the coast from Naples and close to the Amalfi Drive. The brooding temples of Paestum, gazing out across their lonely plain, are wrapped in mystery. Yet Pompeii and Herculaneum, the other members of this trio, are just the opposite. What makes these celebrated buried cities so infinitely moving is the volumes they speak, their power to conjure up an entire lost world. continue reading »