United States or Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Under the very walls of Paestum there now took place a stubborn fight wherein the army of the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods and rocky valleys of the Lucanian hills.

Forty years later, after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania fell under the rising power of Rome, a change that was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities, which were groaning under the rude tyranny of the Samnites. A Latin colony was now planted at Paestum, to form a convenient centre whence the neighbouring district could be kept in order and peaceably developed according to Roman ideas.

Angelo and that region are supposed to be the haunts of brigands. From those heights they spy out the land, and from thence have, more than once, descended upon the sea-road between Castellamare and Sorrento, and caught up English and German travelers. This elevation commands, also, the Paestum way.

In further remarks on Paestum I may say there is a city wall in wonderful preservation, one of the gates of which is partly entire and displays the figure of a Syren under the architrave, but the antiquity of the sculpture is doubted, though not that of the inner part of the gate so at least thinks Sir William, our best authority on such matters.

I've been to Naples; down to Paestum; drove from Salerno to Sorrentoby Amalfi; but that was years ago." "Here's a large scale map that will refresh your memory." He unfolded it and laid it across their knees; it was frayed with wear along the folds, and had been heavily marked and dotted with red and blue pencillings. "My millions are in this large irregular section," he continued.

I do not know whether there is any one among them which, taken alone, exceeds in beauty that of Neptune, at Paestum; but they have the advantage of number and variety, as well as of highly interesting positions.

In the distant days of the eighteenth century, the traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst other difficulties and dangers of the road the disagreeable business of being ferried across the Sele, which was then bridgeless.

Similar conflicts probably raged in the north around Firmum, Atria, Pinna, in the south around Luceria, Beneventum, Nola, Paestum, before and while the Roman armies gathered on the borders of the insurgent country.

The mighty Doric of Paestum, Selinus, and Segesta, the Theseion and the Parthenon, remains for all time the perfect expression of the soul of ancient Greece.

Moreover, he is troubled with fits of what may be called the cold enthusiasm; he babbles of Mont Blanc and the picturesque; and when the fit is on, he raves of Raphael and Correggio, Rome, Athens, Paestum, and Jerusalem. He despises England, and has no home; or at least loves none.