The Ancients - Paestum: Ancient Greeks in Italy

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Tristan Hughes visits his favourite ancient site in Italy; Paestum, an ancient site renowned for its impressive Greek temples dedicated to Poseidon, Athena and Hera. Tristan is guided through Paestum's tumultuous history from the city's Greek origins in 480 BC to its eventual takeover by the Romans, painting a vivid picture of the interactions between the Greeks, Lucan, and the ever-present Romans.MOREFall of the EtruscansListen on AppleListen on SpotifyRoman RoadsListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPresented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's 480 BC. The calm waters of the Terranian Sea are a royal blue, with the Italian coast visible in the distance. A small ship sails north, carried by a favourable wind and keeping close to the shoreline. It's a trading ship, full of fancy vases. The helmsman and his crew had come from Athens. They were sailing north to trade with the great power that dominated Italy at that time, the Etruscans, who had developed quite a love for Greek art.

Over the past few weeks, they had been sailing around the Italian coastline, passing numerous cities along the way. Tarentum, Croton, Regium, Elea, valued havens in a world where sailing as night was avoided. Now they could see the next port city on the horizon, situated in a great fertile plain with mountains rising up behind. Impressive stone walls surround it, and beyond protruding above this defence, the tops of the great monuments that define this city were visible. Two large temples side by side, one bigger and grander than the other, shouting out a clear message, Greeks live here. A warm bed, wine and music awaited the helmsman that night, familiar Greek comforts in a foreign land. He thanked Poseidon for the ship's safe journey so far. He vowed

to make an offering to the terrifying deity as soon as he landed, lest his luck change. It was the least he could do. He was entering the God's namesake city after all. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the ancients. Now, last year I had the privilege of visiting what I will unashamedly say is my favourite ancient site in Italy. Not Pompeii, not the Colosseum, but Pestim, home to some of the best surviving ancient Greek temples outside of Greece, and so much more. Why is it my favourite site? Well, I love the story of the ancient Greeks who went west and settled in southern Italy, and the interactions they had with various Italian peoples, including the Romans.

Sometimes peaceful, sometimes not. We were there at Pestam to create a documentary all about this ancient city, Pestum, A Tale of Three Cities, which you can go and watch now on History Hit. We'll put a link in the description. In this episode, we'll be walking you through this stunning sight. We'll shine a light on some of its greatest treasures, how this city has legacies left by Greeks, Etruscans, Lucanians and Romans, and why this site should be on any ancient history enthusiasts bucket list of places to visit. If we're looking at Peastom, as, say, a visitor walking into the city,

it would have been a walled city with quite imposing monumental gates. It would have had the new temple, which was visible from the sea. So if you were arriving by sea, that's pretty much the first thing you would have seen. remember that the city in the 4th century BC did not just have a Lucanian population, the Greeks were there. And the connection, the interaction between the Greeks, the Lucanians and other populations, it was crucial to then define this new language. Along the way, I'll be helped by two leading experts on Pestam and the wider story of the ancient Greeks in Italy. Dr. Catherine Lomas, an honorary research fellow at Durham University, and Dr. Titiana

Angelo, Director of the Archaeological Park of Pestum and Avellia. One last note. There are several ways people say Pestum today. Others might say Pistam, others still Pistam. But rest assured, we are always talking about the same place. Let's get into it. Pestim lies in southern Italy, about a kilometre from the coast and 90 kilometres south-east of Naples. Founded by the Greeks, at the turn of the 6th century BC, it was

originally called Posidonia, after the city's divine protector, the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, an appropriate deity for a city joined to the rest of the Greek world by its proximity to the sea. on the Gulf of Salerno, and it's about two to three kilometres inland, so we're talking coastal plain, with a low plateau, which is where the city actually is. That's Dr. Catherine Lomas, Honorary Research Fellow at Durham University, and the editor of the new book, The World of the Western Greeks. Basically, we're talking about somewhere which is quite close to the coast. It's about

10 kilometres south of the River Selae, which is one of the major waterways of southern Italy, so it's got very good maritime connections and a good way of bringing goods in, shipping goods out, keeping connections, which obviously is important because land transport is slow and expensive at this date. Basically, it's got the Apennines sort of inland and also the collaborative mountains to the south, with passers leading southwards, which may have been significant in why the site was chosen. The area is quite prone to flooding and water logging, which is significant in its later history, so that's quite important. But also, So it controls a very large territory of a very fertile land. So it's got really good resources and good connections with the wider world, both Greek and non-Greek. Pestim was one of numerous settlements that the Greeks founded across the ancient Mediterranean. These stretched from Crimea to North Africa to Sicily and southern Italy. These settlers brought their Greek culture with them to these distant shores. They maintained close links between their new.

new home and the mother city that they came from, links that endured for generations. Magna Gratia, or Megalais Hellas, as it was known in Greek, literally means greater Greece, or Great Greece, and it's conventionally used to refer by scholars to the Greek settlements in Italy. These are conventionally terms colonies, but that's actually really contentious. Quite a lot of scholars reject that term in favour of something much more neutral like migration. But the reason why the Greeks were there in the first place is that this is the culmination a very long-standing network of social and economic contacts between Greece and the Western Mediterranean, stretching as far as Spain, which goes right back to the Bronze Age. So what we have

is a very long-standing trade route, which basically means that the Greeks of Greece are very familiar with the Western Mediterranean. But eventually, at some point, around about the 8th to the 7th centuries BC, that really seems to ramp up in intensity. And we find that we have a period of quite intensive and quite rapid permanent settlements growing up in southern Italy and also Sicily. And the contributory factors to that seem to have been a combination of economic opportunism. These are areas with vast amounts of arable land compared with Greece, familiarity with the area through these trade contacts, which probably helped mediate this, and civil strife in Greece itself. And quite a lot of the foundation legends that we have handed down through

the ancient sources, feature stories about individuals or small groups of people who were forced out of their home cities for various reasons. And in fact, the foundation of Peastom itself is a case in point because civic discord in its founding city, Cyberus, which is on the south coast of Italy, seems to have been a big factor in why Pistam was founded. Pestam was founded relatively late in the story of Greek settlements in southern Italy. As Catherine mentioned, it was founded by Greeks who came from Cyberus. Imagine Italy's boot-like shape, Cybarus could be found right on its sole, positioned next to what is now the Bay of Taranto and looking east towards Corfu and northwest Greece. The city had been founded

by mainland Greeks in the 8th century BC. By around 600 BC, Ciberus had already become a wealthy city. But troubles within encouraged a group of people there to leave. They headed west, sailing around the tow of Italy in search of a new homeland. It was they who founded Posidonia. We'll largely say Pestam from now on to keep it simple. Same place. Over the following decades, Pestam would grow and start to establish itself in the area. Its people built a harbour, taking advantage of the trade routes and farmed the abundant arable

lands on this coastal plain. Words soon spread, with more settlers arriving at Pestum over the course of the 6th century, keen for a fresh start in this fledgling city. Early on, Pestom's story was intertwined with Ciberis, but that all changed at the end of the 6th century when Ciberis was destroyed. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, Cibarus had grown into a rich and powerful city, but its people grew arrogant and decadent. This is where we get the word Cyberite from, and this led to their swift downfall. In a war with Croton, a neighbouring Greek city and modern-day Crotone, Cibarus was destroyed. The armies of Croton diverted the water from the nearby river, flooding Cibarus and forcing its people to flee. It's likely that many of these

Sybarite refugees fled to Pestum. Pestum had outlived the mother city, and its prominence would only increase. By the middle of the 5th century BC, Pestum had many of the classic hallmarks of an ancient Greek city. If we're looking at Pistam, as say a visitor walking into the city, it would have been a walled city with quite imposing monumental gates. It would have had the new temple, which is currently under excavation, which was visible from the sea, right near the Port of Marina in the western end of the city. So if you were arriving by sea, that's pretty much the first thing you would have seen. And then you can walk down these long, narrow streets of houses and workshops and shops. And when you got to the centre, you would

have the Agarar, which was very big by Greek Agarar standards, probably somewhere around about 330 by 300 metres. And in the middle, it's got a hero shrine, a heroine, which may have been the cult of the founder, the Eugist, as the Greeks call them. By the beginning of the 5th century, it's also acquired an Ecclesiasterion, which is a circular building with stepped seats, a bit like a theatre, which is where political assemblies are held. And that again gives you some sort of insight into the size of the city, because at a guesstimate, that could have probably seated about 1,500 to 1,700 people. And if you take into account the fact that the Greek cities only allowed adult male citizens into places like an Ecclesiosterion, therefore

you've got a multiplier that you can add on for my wife's children, slaves, non-citizens, that gives you a really quite substantial population of probably in the region of 10 to 12,000 people. So it's quite a substantial size city. Pestam was not just substantial, it was also incredibly striking, defined by three great temples that dominated the city. They were built between 550 and 450 BC, all made from local limestone. One of them was built at the northern end of the city, the Temple of Athena. The other two are situated in the south, right next to each other. The first is today known as the Basilica, so called because it was originally thought to be

an ancient law court. But fines have since proven it was a temple to the goddess Heera. It's the oldest of the three temples built in the mid-sixth century BC just decades after Pestam was founded. Next to the Basilica, you have the grandest of Pestom's surviving temples standing more than 10 metres tall. It's called the Temple of Neptune today, but of course Neptune is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Poseidon, Lord of the Sea, and the divine patron of Pestam. Whether the temple was actually dedicated to Poseidon, however, well, we'll address that in a moment. But first, let's paint a clear picture of the Temple of Neptune. It is one of the most spectacular surviving examples of ancient Greek temple architecture from anywhere in the world. It is the pinnacle of a particular style known as the Doric Order.

It's called Doric after the long, almost 9-metre high-fluted columns that surround to the outside of the temple, 36 in total. They're called Doric columns. A small capital adorns the top of each column, supporting the top half of the temple. Directly above the columns on all four sides is a long blank rectangle. Strip called the Architrave. Above that is another rectangular strip, but this time the strip is intersected with regular patterns of three vertical lines. Now those three vertical lines are called triglyphs, and the blank squarish spaces created between them are called metapes. Usually, that would be where you would find carved reliefs, but none survive on this particular

temple. Either the metapes were left empty or they were painted and the paint hasn't survived. Finally, right at the top at each end of the temple, you have one of the most iconic parts of its design, the pediment, the triangular top. We usually picture pediments filled with statues, posing in clever ways to take advantage of the diminishing space. But, once again, no such decorations survive on this. temple. But let that not take away anything from the majesty of this building. Visually it is perfect, one of the best Doric temples in the world, magnificent and awe-inspiring. Stepping inside, you are dwarfed by the large Doric columns that fill its interior, and it's not just single-tiered. If you look up, you notice that there is another level of columns

in the centre. The remains of limestone stairs confirmed the fact this temple originally had multiple floors. It was here within the grand ruins of the Temple of Neptune that I met Dr Tiziana D'Angelo, director of the Archaeological Park of Pestam and Tvelia. Tiziana, this does just blow me away. I'm so excited. And this was right at the heart. Was this the sacred center of the temple? Yes. So right now, were in the Naos, the cellar. This would have been the space where the cult statue was placed.

And you always have to remember that Greek temples are not like churches. They were very different. They were more like, you know, the house of the god. And worshippers would have had access to these buildings, but most of the sacred rituals would have taken place outside by the altar. So this is just the big house for the god. But do we know which God was worshipped here? That is a very good question and one that we've been trying to answer.

I mean, when the first archaeologists came to Pestum during the Grand Tour and they saw this monumental building. So that's 18th century. Yes, 18th century, mid-18th century. That's when the site starts being rediscovered, as it were. And archaeologists thought that this temple was so monumental that it must have been the one dedicated to Poseidon, the God who protected the city of Poseidonia. But in fact, archaeological evidence shows that that is not the case.

And this temple was more likely dedicated to the goddess Hira or perhaps to the god Apollo. The queen of the gods. So Hira, she's the wife of Zeus. So she is one of the top gods of the Malt. Yes, and we have several temples that were dedicated to her. I mean, we have just behind us the so-called basilica that was dedicated to Hira and also the spectacular temple of Hira,

just nine kilometres north of Pestum at the mouth of the River Selle. Being such a massive construction, not just one story, two stories high, do we know much about how they built this? Yes, so this is a great example of Doric architecture and more specifically of the way in which Doric architecture developed here in Poseidonia. And it's a very mature expression of Doric architecture as well. I mean, with the other great temples that we have, preserved here in Pestum, what we see is really the sort of stylistic development of these structures.

So with the Temple of Hira, the so-called Basilica... So it's that one right there behind us. That one right behind us. What we can see is one of the early examples of the Doric, so more sort of experimental. But with the Temple of Neptune, which was finished around the mid-fifth century BC, we have probably the most mature expression of Doric architecture that is preserved here. interestingly, that one is almost, they're experimenting with Doric architecture, and this is almost a finalised version of it, when they've almost got the style nailed out more to a tea.

Yeah, even though, you know, it's not always as easy as that. Of course, absolutely. With this temple in particular, the project must have changed along the way. So when they started building it, probably towards the end of the sixth century, they had an idea what the temple would have looked like. And then the project changed. And that's why they probably finished it a bit later. And we see this change precisely between, you know, by looking at the base of the temple, the podium of the temple, and then the upper part of it, which are different. And you mentioned there, so the end of the 6th century BC,

so that's within roughly 100 years of Pestam, you know, ancient Posidonia being founded. It seems pretty quick. Was this almost a statement of power, of the wealth of Pestum at that time, that, you know, within 100 years of it being founded, They could already build massive temples like this. I mean, the city was indeed very wealthy, just like its mother city in Calabria, Sybaris. But it also had, you know, very skilled architects and, you know, engineer.

So in 510 BC, when the mother city of Poseidonia, Sybaris was destroyed, then what we see here in Pestum is almost like a process of monumentalization of this city, which would have to some extent also replaced its mother city in terms of its power and control over Western Greece. So it's like the colony overtakes the mother city, almost kind of the apprentice becomes the master in a weird kind of way. Well, I mean, in some ways, yes. And then you can imagine that probably, but again, you know, this is also speculation. But probably you would have had some, you know, groups of people from Sybaris also coming here to Poseidonia after the destruction. of the mother city. And so how powerful and significant

does Greek Pestim, does Poseidonia become? Well, if you think about its urban sanctuaries, so, you know, here the so-called Temple of Neptune, the so-called Basilica, then the Temple of Athena, if you think about its five kilometers of city walls, if you think about its huge agorah, where the Ecclesiastrian is still preserved, if you think about the Heron,

the tomb dedicated to the hero founder of the city, then you realise that this was a powerful city in southern Italy, mania, Greta. ancient Greek cities in Magna Gretia that has become prosperous by the 5th century BC. Others included Syracuse and Akragas in Sicily, the latter famous for its own valley of temples at today's Agrigento. There was also Regium at the toe of Italy, Tarentum at the heel, and of course Neapolis beneath Mount Vesuvius. We know it today as Naples. At the same time that famous Greek cities on the mainland, like Athens and Sparta, were fighting off the Persians

and reaching their zeniths, these Greeks in the West were enjoying their own golden age. Greek culture was thriving in southern Italy, and during these centuries you would see a special development of Greek art in these cities, influenced by powerful Italian neighbours, like the Etruscans, who at that time were still the dominant power in Italy. Rome, at that time, still paled in comparison. Visit somewhere like the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples today, and you can see great examples of this Italiot Greek art. But the art from Pestom is particularly special.

Pestum has treasures that are as rare and as beautiful as anything from ancient Greece, with one particular example standing out above all others. It was discovered one and a half kilometres south of Pestam, not in a grand temple, but in a tomb. It's called the Tomb of the Diver, after one of the most stunning pieces of ancient Greek art in the world. A wall painting, rectangular in its design, that depicts a very unique and tranquil scene. A young man, who has just jumped off a tall platform, caught in a perfect, position, moments away from hitting a pool of water beneath him. Today, this painting has become a symbol of Pestam and the ancient Greeks in Italy, on display

at Pestam's Archaeological Museum. I was lucky enough to see it up close with Tiziana as my expert guide. I mean, Tiziana, I have to say, this is one of the most incredible wall paintings I've ever seen. The details that survive, I mean, it's astonishing. Yeah, this is a very unique example of ancient wool painting. It is to the 5th century BC and we hear so much about you know Greek wool painting from literary sources but actually you know pretty much nothing survives but here in southern Italy there you have you know an example that is still so well preserved. And of all places and this so this is roughly 2,500 years old and you wouldn't believe it at first when you see it because of how much it survived. Exactly. I mean this was preserved so well because

because it was in a tomb, right? So the context was sealed. And until 1968, when the tomb was discovered, when the tomb was excavated, its colours just kind of stayed hidden below the ground. What exactly can we see here? I'm guessing this figure right in the centre, the main character. This is the diver. This is a diving scene.

But first of all, let's just try and imagine this tomb. This is the lid. And this is the interior side of the lid. So this would be face down in the tomb. Exactly. It's, you know, the figure of the diver would have been right above the deceased's face. So the tomb was decorated on the inside. So its interior walls were decorated with frescoes.

And this in particular was, as I said, the lid. So there you have, you know, the diver. This is a very special painting, and it's become over the years, almost like an icon of the archaeological park of pest tomb. And what other things can we see here? So we've got this kind of, this platform-like image here, and is there water there? So what are these other details?

Yes, so here we have, as you said, you know, we've got this sort of tower, this platform, and the diver, you know, has just jumped off that platform, exactly. And here what you have is water. It looks like a lake, maybe the sea, you know, we don't know. I mean, this scene is still so mysterious to us. And, you know, here we have some trees. And what makes it so interesting?

is the fact that it doesn't have so many comparisons, so many comparanda that we can look to in order to reconstruct what is going on. And there are so many interpretations that have been suggested, that have been put forward for this scene. But in a way, you know, we're still thinking, we're still trying to figure out the diver. We've got some interesting kind of floral patterns and trees either side. But what I also love, you can see the pupil of his eye. And you can also see like hair as well. So does that reveal more about the actual figure?

Yeah, there's a lot of attention to anatomical details. I mean, you see a little bit of his beard, but not too much. And that tells us that this is a young man, you know, not a full beard that would qualify him as an adult man. But at the same time, this is not a child. So that also suggests that what we are dealing with is almost like, you know, potentially an age group ritual, potentially a kind of, you know, coming of age moment. So, you know, this dive must have been a very special dive. I mean, I haven't seen any other scene like this in any Greek wall painting or Roman wall painting or anything like it. But talking about paint itself, I mean, so how was this actually created?

Do we know about that? Yes, so the technique that was used is the fresco technique, which means that a stone was coated with plaster, with a very thin layer of plaster. I mean, this is very high-quality painting. And while the plaster was still wet, the artist applied the pigments, the painting. So this technique was widespread in the ancient Mediterranean from the archaic period onwards. Okay, the big question. So we've got this beautiful scene here found in a tomb.

What do we think this scene represents? Yeah, that is a very good question. I mean, the tomb was discovered in 1968 over half a century ago. and scholars are still debating about its interpretation. Some scholars have suggested that this might be a sort of metaphor of, you know, the dive as a passage from life to afterlife. But more recent interpretations, I've tried to look at it as a representation of daily life or, you know, the life of the disease. As I said, you know, something that would refer to his passage from youth to adulthood. But the diver was not the only image found in this tomb. So, as I said, you know,

the deceased was surrounded by these figural paintings. And all around him, we have a banquet scene, or more precisely, a symposium that unfolded. So a banquet to which only men participated. The symposium was the drinking party of ancient Greek culture. Guests would recline on couches, listen to music, discuss politics and philosophy, drink wine out of rounded cups called Kailikaze. One of the men shown reclining at the banquet is engaged in a drinking game called Kotabos, where you threw the dregs of wine out of your cup towards a target elsewhere in the room. Another figure plays the liar. Another is a cup bearer. Very rarely do we see humans depicted in Greek wall paintings.

And these frescoes speak to an influence from the neighbouring Etruscans, the most powerful Italian people at the beginning of the 5th century BC. At the same time, in the early 5th century BC, wall painting was at its height in the Etruscan world, and there are similarities between this tomb and Etruscan painted tombs, which reminds us again of the importance of cultural contexts between the Greeks and other populations living nearby. So this could actually be showing the meetings that the Greeks who were here in southernicity were having with other Italian peoples at that time. That's extraordinary. I mean, the Greek art here in Pestam is different from, you know, Greek art elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

And the reason is precisely that the population here interacted, and sometimes there were conflict as well, with different cultures. I mentioned the Etruscans and then, you know, the Lucanians also lived nearby and other Italian populations. that they created a very different, a very specific type of art. And in the banquet scene, we can see elements of this multiculturality. These stunning wall paintings from the Tomb of the Diver are some of the most beautiful from anywhere in the Greek world, showing just how prosperous Pestam had become by the 5th century BC and how prominent a place it was.

But nothing lasts forever. 200 years after its foundation, Pestam, this idyllic Greek city, gradually came under threat. Not from abroad, beyond the seas, but from closer to home, from inland. The main question about Pistam's relationships with the indigenous Italians is really centred on the Lucanians, which are a group that speaks a language called Oskan, which is the common language of Apennine and large parts of southern Italy, and seems to be culturally related to the Samnites who live in the Apennines. But by this stage, they were migrating south and developing their own very distinct cultural and ethnic identity as they went.

Quite a lot of them move into peacem territory, settle there, may be brought in as mercenaries. They have quite a ferocious military reputation. So by this stage, what we've got is a situation that the fall of Cyberus has created a bit with a power vacuum at the end of the 6th century, you've got Lucanians sort of migrating south in the 5th, and Peastom is becoming much more ethnically mixed as a result. As the 5th century went on, Lucanian power only increased, and they began to pressure Greek cities all across southern Italy, including Pestom. By 400 BC, the scales had tipped, and Pestom fell into the hands of the Lucanians.

It doesn't seem to have been a violent takeover, no destruction layer has been found in the archaeology. Instead, there appears to have been an ethnographic shift, with the Lucanians now outnumbering the Greeks in the city. For the people of Pestam, a new age in their story had begun, an age where Lucanian overlords ran the show. For haughty Greeks elsewhere, seeing Pestham fall into the hands of these so-called barbarians, led them to deride the city. They saw this as the beginning of a dark age in Pestam's story, where Greek culture was suppressed and barbarity reigned supreme. One person who held to this view was a philosopher called Aristoxinus, who hailed from Tarentum, which remained free of Italian control. Remarking on Pestam's Lucanian takeover, he bemoaned the tragedy of the Greeks that lived there. What happened to them is that they were originally Greeks but have turned into barbarians,

and their language has changed along with all their other practices. They continue today to celebrate only one Greek festival, in which they get together and imitate their ancient way of speaking and behaving, after they wail about them with one another and cry their hearts out, they go back home. In Aristocinus' view, the Greeks that lived alongside Lucanians at Pestum had forgotten everything that made them Greek, that made them civilised and rational human beings. It's a damning portrayal, but it's also fictional, because, contrary to what Aristocinus would have us believe, the Greeks did not forget their beliefs. Greek culture at Pestum

was not suppressed. In fact, the archaeology is revealing quite the opposite. Inscriptions and dedications show how the Greek language endured alongside Oskine, the language that the Lucanians spoke. Pestum's prestigious Greek sanctuaries, including those three great temples we mentioned earlier, continued in use. As to the the Greek cemeteries, as did their public buildings in the agorra. Lucanian elites may now have ruled Pestam, but they made no attempts to suppress Greek culture. They admired it. Let's take pottery as an example. Under Lucanian overlordship, Pestam produced some of the most beautiful vases from the ancient Mediterranean. Made in the classically Greek red figure style, more than 2,000 of

these pestin vases have been discovered. Many depict scenes of Greek mythology. There's one that depicts the wondrous birth of Helen of Troy, who hatched from an egg after Helen's mother, Queen Leda of Sparta, had been seduced by Zeus, king of the gods, in the guise of a swan. Another shows the Phoenician Princess Europa being abducted from her homeland in the eastern Mediterranean by Zeus in the guise of a bull. We even have the names of vase makers surviving. Acetas was one celebrity name. Python was another.

Both left their signatures on their vases, ensuring their names have survived to the present day. The archaeology shows just how wrong Aristoxinus was. Greek culture was flourishing at Pestam. The Lucanian elites admired it. Many of these elaborate vases were found in Lucanian tombs. But the Lucanians also had their own rich culture, with a big emphasis on the warrior. And it's at Pestham that we see a fascinating blend of the two in some stunning wall paintings. More than 400 wall paintings dating to the Lucanian period have been found from tombs around Pestam.

Many are stored in the museum storerooms, a Sistine Chapel of ancient Lucanian art. Welcome to our museum storerooms. Whoa. No way. This is an archaeologist's dream, isn't it? Look at this. Yeah, it's a bit of a hidden treasure. Our storerooms are about 1,400 square meters,

and you see they're completely packed with these gems. And these gems, these are just more these kind of, these great slabs and wall paintings from Pestum's long history. Yeah, we've got hundreds of painted slabs that come from cemeteries, all around the city of Pestum. And most of them are so-called Lucanian tombs. So they date to the fourth century BC. Look at that.

That's a weird creature there as well. I know that's a demon, right? It's one of these fantastic creatures that populate these, you know, very lively scenes. Their imagination, yeah. How many? So some 400, did you say? Yeah, around 400 slabs, yeah. In addition to some chamber painted tombs as well. as well. As you walk past row after row of these wall paintings, you notice much more of a focus on

fighting. Tiziana took me to two particularly interesting slabs, one showing two warriors fighting with swords, spears and shields, the other showing a rider, elegantly dressed and carrying a war trophy, a pole with a flag attached. So what's so interesting about this one? I mean, it is striking, but why? Well, when you look at both these slabs, what you can see is a very important feature of Lucanian culture, of the Lucanian people. In particular here, you realize how important it was for the Lucanian aristocracy, for Lucanian men to be celebrated as warriors, to be commemorated for their militaristic virtue. So militaristic scene, I mean, and this straight at it's so different to the Tomb of the Diver earlier in the type of scene that it's depicting. As you say,

this is much more showing themselves in the heat of battle fighting. Yeah, so you go from a banquet scene, from a sympotic scene, which really commemorates the role of the individual within the police, within the community. What you're looking at here instead is how important it was for the Lucanians to commemorate their victories in battle, for example. So here you see, for example, two warriors fighting. Okay, great.

But over there, what you have is a rider. You see he's coming back. He's on his horse. And what he's holding is a spear and you see a trophy. So it's coming back from battle. That flag, that little flag thing that he's carrying, very triumphant looking. Exactly. So he comes back.

And so that shows him as a victorious rider. And in a way also overcoming not just the enemy, but also overcoming death. And that scene right there. So he's upright on his horse and he's carrying that flag. standard slash trophy on the sphere, as you say. And I've seen similar depictions on that on other wall paintings. So was that the common way that these people, they liked to portray themselves as triumphant victors returning from a war? Well, yes, these painted tombs, they had a set of recurring iconographies that you have over and over again in these tombs. And the iconography

of the return of the rider, that's how we refer to it. Return of the rider. Yeah, the return of the rider. Very mysterious, right? But that's a very popular one. And it's popular for men. Then you have a completely different set of iconographies for women. So they're very much different in terms of gender. And these two scenes, I'm guessing there were other types of scenes depicted in these tombs too. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, our Lucan painted tombs had a wide range of iconographies, very lively scenes. And I would like to show you a few of them. I'm not going to say no in this absolute archaeological treasure trope that you have here. And I've got one in particular. that I want to show you, and it's here. There we have it. Let me see if I can fill it out. Good luck.

There we go, yeah. Wow. Now you're going to have to tell me what you think about it. Wow, it's stunning. You know, me, it's not bad. It's not bad. I kind of expected a more, you know, enthusiastic reaction. It's incredible.

What Titsiana has just pulled out is a large rectangular slab, depicting an ancient Lucan chariot race. There are two chariots on opposite ends of the painting, each pulled by two horses. One set of horses have red mains, the others have yellow. The charioteers steer them with reins hunched over on very light chariots. A majestic Doric column is painted in the middle of the scene, with both chariot teams racing towards it. So what can I see here so I can see chariots and a column in the centre too? Yeah, what we have here is a chariot race and that was another very common iconography

and it was probably linked to funerary games. That's a very important topic in the context of these ancient tomb paintings. I mean, the funerary ceremony was crucial to understand the role that these paintings had. So do we think many of the scenes, not just the chariots but also, let's say, sometimes the warriors, all those things, do we think many of the scenes that are depicted on these tombs do have a relevant to the funerary games that would have accompanied the bearing of that individual? Well, you have to think that these tombs and therefore the paintings would have been visible during the funeral ceremony. They would have been visible to the community

and probably they were also made during the funerary ceremony. So not in a workshop far away. These were made on site, basically, do we think? Yeah, we have certain clues. There are certain things that suggest that the paintings themselves were executed during the ceremony. So you would have had the artists, you know, inside the tomb, painting them. So the painting is not just a decoration of the tomb. It's actually part of the funerary ceremony. It's part of funerary ideology.

Do we think this whole tradition of these beautifully coloured wool paintings, do we think there is an influence from the Greeks here too and then the Lucanians they see it, but then they put their own twist on it with their own cultural ideas? I mean, what do we think? Do we think there is a link with the Greeks of Pestam here too? Well, yes, I mean, you must remember that the city in the 4th century BC did not just have a Lucanian population, the Greeks were there. And the connection, the interaction between the Greeks,

the Lucanians and other populations, it was crucial to then define this new language, this new artistic language. So yeah, definitely. There was influence, but they still preserved, you know, specific features that speak, you know, this different Lucanian language. Must admit, the Lucanians, compared to other people's, let's say, like the Romans, even the Etruscans, I mean, I haven't heard of them as much. I'm guessing, are things like this invaluable for trying to learn more about this particular people, who many of us haven't heard much of at all? Well, the Lucanians, unlike the Greeks or the Romans, have not left us any literary texts, for example. We have some inscriptions, but these tombs, these paintings are a sort of visual book,

and they offer us some very important glimpses in the life and culture of the Lucanians. So yes, the material culture is absolutely key to understand this population. Too often we can think of ancient Italy as just being Roman. What coming to a place like Pestam makes you realise is just how many different cultures lived and interacted with each other on this peninsula throughout antiquity. At Pestam, you can see clear connections between the Greeks, the Lucanians, and the Etruscans. Elsewhere in Magna Grecia, you can see Greek contact with other local

Italian peoples, Samnites, Apulians, Brutians, Messapians, Campanians, showing how there was a rich mosaic of different powers in southern Italy before the Romans took over. Speaking of which, The Lucanians ruled Pestum for just over a hundred years. But in the early 3rd century BC, great change was coming to southern Italy. A new power had risen to the fore in central Italy and was now looking to expand. Yep, these were the Romans. The history of the 4th century BC is really a seminal one for Rome. It's the period in which Rome really starts its push to control the rest of the century.

of Italy. So right at the beginning of the 4th century, Rome is really rather in the doldrums. It gets sacked by the Gauls. It has to rebuild. It's not in a very happy state. But by the middle of the century, it embarks on a whole series of wars in Italy, which ultimately end up by the early 3rd century, with it conquering the whole of Italy. Polybius famously says that it conquered the whole of Italy within a very short period of time, and this is a tremendous achievement. A lot of ancient sources theme this as a series of coherent wars against the Samnites. Livy says rather grandly that, you know, this is going to determine whether Samnite or Roman shall rule Italy. It really does see it as a sort of complete showdown with the Samnites.

We're not going to get into the complexities of the Samnite wars now. That's a topic for another podcast or several. But Rome's ultimate victory against the Samnites, paved the way for their expansion into southern Italy. Now this put them into conflict with the Greek cities, led by Tarentum. Yet these cities lacked the strength to oppose the Romans on their own. In recent decades, they had grown used to requesting outside assistance. Warlords from mainland Greece keen to expand their power into rich and fertile Magna Gretia. The policy hadn't enjoyed the greatest success in the past, but in 2018, 81 BC, with the Romans knocking on their door, the Tarantines tried again.

They looked to a new rising warlord on the Greek mainland, Pyrrhus, King of Molosha, leader of the Epirots in northwest Greece, a relative of Alexander the Great, and a charismatic proven commander. With a mighty army centered around professional pike phalanxes, shock cavalry and Indian war elephants. Pyrrhus crossed the small strait that divides Greece and Italy and led the resistance against the Romans. He gained early success, winning a victory against the Romans at Heraclea, after which it's likely that Pestam joined his side.

Samnites, Lucanians and Greeks were united under Pyrrhus' banner against Rome. Another victory followed for Pyrrhus the next year at Asculum, but this one was less clear-cut. Pyrrhus lost a lot of his key troops, with him supposedly remarking at the end of the day, Another such victory, and I am undone. Effectively, another victory that costly, and I'll lose the war. This is where we get the phrase Pyrrhic victory from. Pyrrhus would have expected the Romans to give in after two defeats, but the Romans had other ideas.

Like the Hydra, they raised new forces to fight Pyrrhus, and the tables started. started to turn. A few years and a disastrous Sicilian expedition later, Pyrrhus brought the Romans to battle once more in southern Italy, this time at a place called Beneventum. There the Romans either defeated Pyrrhus or brought him to a stalemate. The result was the same. Pyrrhus, who many had likened to Alexander the Great, abandoned his Italian venture. With Pyrriss gone, the writing was on the wall for cities like Pestam.

The Romans took control of the city soon after in around 273 BC, marking the beginning of the next stage in Pestam's story. The Romans established a colony at Pestam and were quick to leave their mark on the city. They built a forum, as well as Baths, Lawcourts, a treasury, marketplaces and more, building over Pestam's original Greek heart of the city, its meeting place, its agra, and main political building, its Ecclesiastrian, in the process. Like the Greeks and the Lucanians, the Romans realized that Pestom was a key city in the southern part of Italy, helping them solidify their control over this area.

When the great Carthaginian general Hannibal came knocking in the late 3rd century BC, during his decades-long campaign in Italy, Pestom didn't switch sides. They remained a Roman ally, a wise. decision in hindsight given Rome's ultimate victory in that war. Over time, new noticeably Roman buildings would be built at Pestham, including lavish townhouses and an amphitheatre for gladiatorial games. It remained an important city under Roman rule, famous for its sweet-smelling roses that flowered twice a year according to the Roman poet Virgil, and its great temples remained in use. there was almost certainly for centuries a Greek population that remained at Pestum.

But Pestum did ultimately decline. More than a millennia later in the Middle Ages, flooding and climate shifts turned Pestam into a malarial swamp. The site was abandoned and its magnificent temples fell into obscurity for centuries, marking the spot of a once mighty city. Only in the 18th century was Pestum's story revile. Since then, Pestam and its great temples have continued to inspire. From painters and young aristocrats on their grand tours in the Georgian period to Allied soldiers invading Italy in World War II,

to filming the 1963 Sword and Sandel Epic Jason and the Argonauts, to people visiting the site today. Peastom is very much a special site today. I mean, the reason why is, I think, partly its visual impact, you know, it is in this very low-lying area and as you approach it from the railway station or as you pass it on the train, you know, you see this vast plain

with these three absolutely magnificent Doric temples and it is really quite eye-popping now that it is visible again. It is this really very visually striking sight, one which gives you a tremendous sense of what these cities were and how important they were. When you think of ancient Italy, you naturally think of right.

Rome, but coming to a site like Pestam makes you realise that the Romans didn't live in a vacuum. They shared Italy with a huge range of extraordinary cultures, Etruscans, Sanmites, Lucanians, and of course, the Greeks. And Pestam is the greatest place where you can see that today. Thanks to the amazing work of experts like Catherine and Tiziana, we're still learning more about Pestam and the people who lived in this city. learning more about the Greeks of Magna Grecia full stop, their interactions with the local peoples, their lasting impacts on the ancient Mediterranean world, their incredible art and architecture

that astute the test of time, epitomized by Pestam's magnificent temples. I'll end this episode with a poem, written by Cornish poet Nicholas Michel, almost 200 years ago, after he visited Pestom and laid eyes on its majestic ruins. But Pestam's giant temples, lift thine eyes, in all their stern and columned grandeur rise. Pause, traveller, pause. Say, doth not wonder, thrill, thy creeping veins and all thy bosom fill? Wrestling with time, the hoary brethren stand, Superbly graceful. and severely grand. Their style of rival countries seems to speak, in strength, Egyptian, and in beauty

Greek. Built Air Minerva's shrine on Athens gazed, or by wild Tyber Rome's rude walls were raised, three thousand years these structures fail to bow, massive when Christ was born, and massive now. Gaze on the architrave's majestic length, the deep, ranged fluted pillars, tighten strength, the low, wide pediment, the strong-walled cell, where altars burned, and gods were wont to dwell. And say no more, in poor and narrow pride, art lives today, but rather art hath died. Confess that taste beholds on Pestam's plain, what modern skill might strive to match in vain. Thank you for listening to this special ancients episode all about the ancient wonder that is Pestan.

Hopefully this has inspired you to add the site to your ancient history site's buckets list, and you won't be disappointed. If you want to see all the things we've talked about and so much more, then do go and check out my latest documentary on History Hit, which explores the story of the city and its people, from its Greek beginnings to its final takeover by the Romans. We'll put a link to the documentary in the show notes. Thank you once again for listening.

If you enjoyed this special episode, please remember to follow the ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Now, that really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, where we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit

for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my new documentary on Pestam, with a new release every week. Simply sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all for me. I'll see you in the next episode.