The Ruins of Paestum (Basilica of Hera)

Greek colonists from Sybaris founded Poseidonia around 600 BCE, establishing a major center for the worship of Hera. The city passed through Lucanian and Roman hands before its medieval abandonment and eighteenth-century rediscovery.

The colonists who founded Poseidonia came from Sybaris, itself a Greek colony in southern Italy. According to the ancient geographer Strabo, the sanctuary of Hera at the mouth of the nearby Sele River was established by Jason and his Argonauts during their mythic journey around the Mediterranean. While this origin story belongs to legend rather than history, it speaks to the antiquity that the Greeks themselves attributed to the site's sacred character.

The choice of Hera as the principal deity may reflect the assimilation of an existing local goddess cult. Archaeological evidence suggests that the site held sacred significance before Greek arrival, with an Italic mother goddess worshipped in the area. The Greeks incorporated this existing sanctity into their own religious framework, dedicating multiple shrines to Hera in her various aspects: as protector of marriage, guardian of women's rites of passage, and patron of fertility.

The city prospered for two centuries under Greek rule before falling to the Lucanians around 400 BCE. These Italic people maintained the sanctuary and continued worship at the temples. When Rome established a colony here in 273 BCE, renaming the city Paestum, religious practice continued alongside the new Latin presence. Greek and Roman gods coexisted until the Theodosian decrees ended pagan worship in 392 CE.