Tristan Hughes

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 Pestum to create a documentary all about this ancient city, 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 site, 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 enthusiast's bucket list of places to visit.

Along the way, I'll be helped by two leading experts on Pestum and the wider story of the ancient Greeks in Italy.

Dr. Catherine Lomas, an honorary research fellow at Durham University, and Dr. Tiziana D'Angelo, director of the Archaeological Park of Pestum and Avelia.

One last note.

There are several ways people say Pestum today.

Others might say Peistum.

Others still Peestum.

But rest assured, we are always talking about the same place.

Let's get into it.

Pestum lies in southern Italy, about a kilometre from the coast and 90 kilometres southeast 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.

That's Dr Catherine Lomas, Honorary Research Fellow at Durham University and the editor of the new book, The World of the Western Greeks.

Pestum 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.