Temple of Hera (Paestum)

Temple of Hera (Paestum) (StreetView)
Approximately fifty-five miles (ninety kilometers) south of Naples, Italy, stands the ancient city of Paestum. Legends tell of the city's founding by Jason and the Argonauts, but archaeologists, uncomfortable with the stuff of legends, attribute Paestum's birth to 7th century BC Greek colonists. Paestum was long known as Poseidonia, indicating that the site was once a ceremonial center of Poseidon (the Roman Neptune), the god of the sea. The two primary temples, the 550 BC Basilica and the 450 BC temple of Neptune, were originally dedicated to the fertility goddess Hera. A third temple on the site was dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, spiritual consciousness, and the arts. Poseidonia was conquered and occupied in 400 BC by the Lucans, an Italian people who ruled until 273 BC when the city became a Roman colony. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of malaria from nearby marshes, and Moslem raids in the ninth century, Paestum fell into decline and was deserted for many centuries. Rediscovered only in 1752 by an Italian road-building crew working in the area, Paestum is the finest preserved Greek temple complex in the Mediterranean world.

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