![]() ![]() There are three large temples still remaining, all amazingly well-preserved: Temple of Athena Temple of Neptune The Basilica/Temple of HeraĪfter its foundation under the name Poseidonia, the city was conquered by the local Lucanians (who named it Paistos) and then the Romans who again renamed it to Pesto or Paestum. Paestum was founded around 600 BC, and it has the best-preserved ruins of Greek temples anywhere outside of Greece. Unquestionably, the highlight of the Magna Grecia is the ancient city of Paestum, about an hour and a half away by train from Santa Domenica Talao, and which we visited the day before we purchased our apartment in April of 2011. Greek settlers extensively colonized this area starting around the 8th century BC, who brought with them their dialects of the Ancient Greek language, their religious rites, their traditions of the independent city-state, and most importantly, a variety of the Greek alphabet which evolved into the Latin alphabet. Our village is in the coastal area of Southern Italy known as the Magna Graecia (literally “Great Greece” in Latin). We also knew the area had a deep rich history, but little did we know we would stumble upon a 2,500-year-old ancient Greek village literally in our own backyard! But more on that later …. Sunshine, the sea, astonishing natural beauty, unbelievably good pasta, pizza, and wine, and friendly, warm people! These are the reasons my wife Chris and I bought an apartment in Santa Domenica Talao five years ago, in a 400-year old hilltop village in Southern Italy. Much later, the slave-rebel Spartacus sacked the town and spent the winter of 73-72 BC there training his army, and from there he went on to fight and defeat many Roman armies for the next two years.Īncient Greek sites like the Tavole Palatine and Metaponto are only a few of the treasures of Southern Italy that await your visit! Let me know if have any questions about the area or need any tips on what to see in Southern Italy. ![]() I discovered that the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras lived there after leaving Crotone, due to the city’s ongoing skirmishes with its neighboring city of Sybaris or possibly because of being expelled from there along with the followers of his Pythagorean school. Reading up more about the city of Metaponto, I learned it had become very wealthy as an exporter of grains and corn when it was a Greek colony. Many remains of terracotta decorations and ceramics were found at the site and were originally kept at the Antiquarium there, but apparently they have all been moved to the Metaponto National Archaeological Museum (which unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to visit). Originally the temple had a tiled roof with colorful decorations. The columns are made of a local limestone called mazzarro. The ruins themselves are set back towards the back of the site. You can see fifteen columns of the temple now, but apparently there were originally thirty-two columns making up the original temple. We quickly found the entrance to the site, just off the E90 highway.Ĭhris at the Tavole Palatine Site Entrance This intrigued me so we decided to check it out on our drive back from Matera. It turns out that the Tavole Palatine (or Palatine tables or hills) are the ruins of a sixth-century BC Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Hera, built on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Metapontum (now known as Metaponto). ![]() Taking a closer look at that route, I noticed an archaeological site marked on the map called “Tavole Palatine” near the city of Metaponto, right along our route: The route back from Matera suggested by Google Maps ended up taking us along the Ionian Sea for a short distance: Chris and I saw even more evidence of this on our way back to our village in Calabria from a visit to Matera last summer. Southern Italy is really interesting from this standpoint since it was extensively colonized by Greek settlers starting around the 8th century BC (see my previous blog post). ![]() One of the things I really enjoy about Italy is that it is like an open-air museum, with new things to continually discover about the origins of our Western civilization. ![]()
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