Road station
Paestum
Listen to the story
Pestum is Paestum, founded around 600 BC by Greeks from Sybaris as Poseidonia, the city of Poseidon. Around 410 BC Lucanians took it and renamed it Paistos, and after the war with Pyrrhus, Rome made it a Latin colony. Its roses bloomed twice a year, as the poet Virgil recalls, and its great Doric temples still stand in the plain. On the map the name floats alone: the road line through it from Salernum is missing.