DOI chapter:
Chap. III: Excursion to Beneventum - Furcæ Caudinæ - Mount Taburnus - Beneventum, its Triumphal Arch - Excursion - Nuceria - Cava - Salernum - Mount Alburnus - Pæstum, its History and Temples
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0101
Ch. in.
THROUGH ITALY.
91
As the country still continues flat and covered
with thickets, the traveller scarce discovers Pees-
turn till he enters its walls. We drove to the
bishop’s palace, not through crowded streets and
pompous squares, but over a smooth turf, in the
midst of bushes and brambles, with a solitary
tree waving here and there over the waste. The
unusual forms of three temples rising insulated
and unfrequented, in the middle of such a wil-
derness, immediately engrossed our attention.
We alighted, and hastened to the majestic piles;
then wandered about them till the fall of niffht
obliged us to repair to our mansion. The good
bishop had been so obliging as to send one of his
chaplains to meet us, and provide every thing
requisite for our comfortable accommodation, a
commission which that gentleman performed with
great punctuality and politeness.
Obscurity hangs over, not the origin only but
the general history of the city, though it has left
such magnificent monuments of its existence.
The mere outlines have been sketched perhaps
with accuracy ; the details are probably obliter-
ated for ever. According to the learned Maz-
zochi, Pcestum was founded by a colony of Do-
renses or Dorians, from Dora, a city of Phenicia,
the parent of that race and name whether esta-
blished in Greece or in Italy. It was first called
THROUGH ITALY.
91
As the country still continues flat and covered
with thickets, the traveller scarce discovers Pees-
turn till he enters its walls. We drove to the
bishop’s palace, not through crowded streets and
pompous squares, but over a smooth turf, in the
midst of bushes and brambles, with a solitary
tree waving here and there over the waste. The
unusual forms of three temples rising insulated
and unfrequented, in the middle of such a wil-
derness, immediately engrossed our attention.
We alighted, and hastened to the majestic piles;
then wandered about them till the fall of niffht
obliged us to repair to our mansion. The good
bishop had been so obliging as to send one of his
chaplains to meet us, and provide every thing
requisite for our comfortable accommodation, a
commission which that gentleman performed with
great punctuality and politeness.
Obscurity hangs over, not the origin only but
the general history of the city, though it has left
such magnificent monuments of its existence.
The mere outlines have been sketched perhaps
with accuracy ; the details are probably obliter-
ated for ever. According to the learned Maz-
zochi, Pcestum was founded by a colony of Do-
renses or Dorians, from Dora, a city of Phenicia,
the parent of that race and name whether esta-
blished in Greece or in Italy. It was first called