City
Sinus Pestanus
Gulf of Salerno
Listen to the story
Along the Italian coast, a name set on the sea reads Sinus Pestanus, the bay we now call the Gulf of Salerno. It took its name from the city on its shore, Paestum, known to the Greeks as Poseidonia after Poseidon, god of the sea. The Greek geographer Strabo calls the water the Poseidonian bay, and the Roman writer Pliny the Paestan bay. The label is worn: two letters of the first word are badly damaged, and because the upper stroke of the T is smudged, some older copies misread the name as Pesianus.