Tag: IT – Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park with the Archeological Sites of Paestum and Velia and the Certosa di Padula

Paestum’s ruins provide glimpse into ancient Greek and Roman life; Alison Bath; Stars And Stripes

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Photo: Alison Bath

Paestum, a long-ago Greek colony situated along the Tyrrhenian Sea about 60 miles south of Naples, is well worth exploration by those who appreciate Italy’s wealth of ancient sites.

Source: Paestum’s ruins provide glimpse into ancient Greek and Roman life

Revealing the great Greek Sicilian city; Michael Sweet; Neos Kosmos

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Italy – Syracuse and the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica

Syracuse was once the Mediterranean centre of Greek civilisation, rivalling Athens as the most important metropolis. Michael Sweet walks the streets of Ortygia to tell the story of what Cicero called ‘the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all’.

More than any other Sicilian city, Syracuse reflects the ancient Hellenic history of the Mediterranean’s largest island. Located on the east coast, Syracuse developed from a Greek colony founded by Corinthians in the 7th century BCE. In the two centuries that followed, the city-state enjoyed a period of expansion and prosperity under the tyrant Dionysius the Elder, who made Syracuse the most powerful of the western Greek colonies. Syracuse, like Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, was a Dorian city and during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) it survived a two-year siege by Athenian forces.

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