Paestum and its Plumbing

Poseidonia, a.k.a. Paestum, a City of "Greater Greece"

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Ancient Greece flourished, with its population outgrowing its agricultural production. The more prosperous city-states began establishing colonies around the Mediterranean. This process began along the coasts of Sicily and the southern Italian peninsula in the 8th century BCE. The many Greek colonies were known as "Greater Greece", Megáli Elláda or Μεγάλη Ελλάδα.

One of these colonies was Sybaris, founded around 720 BCE between the "heel" and "toe" of the southern tip of the peninsula of Italy. Sybaris was so successful that its name came to be the basis of sybaritic, sybarite, and related terms about luxury, pleasure, and wretched excess. And, within a century, Sybaris began to establish colonies of its own. One of these was Poseidonia or Ποσειδωνία.

Poseidonia fell to the local Oscan-speaking Lucanian tribe around 400 BCE, they renamed it Paistos. But just as at Pompeii, the Greek and Oscan cultures blended and thrived together with a predominantly Greek culture.

Rome took control of the area in 273 BCE, renaming the large region of Greek settlements Magna Graecia and mostly leaving the Greek culture in place. A dwindling population in the "heel" of Italy still speaks Griko, a language combining ancient Doric, Byzantine Greek, and Italian.

The Roman-ruled city, renamed Paestum, was prosperous for centuries. But then it declined along with Rome through the fourth through seventh centuries CE.

Drainage patterns changed, the river silted up, and the area became a malaria-plagued swamp. The last remaining residents left the city after it was sacked by Arab raiders in 871 CE, and soon it was mostly forgotten.

Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered in the 1700s, and Oplontis after them, all a short distance to the north close to Napoli. This drew attention to the ancient history of the area, and Paestum was rediscovered. Surrounded by swampy terrain, it had been quickly abandoned without becoming a "quarry" for cut stones. Three large temples from roughly 550–450 BCE, some of the best-preserved Greek temples known then or now, became of great interest just as archaeology was first becoming an academic field.

Today, Paestum is an easy day trip from Salerno, the Amalfitani Coast, or Napoli. Sewers, drains, swimming pools, and other aquatic features are easily found!

A 1778 print of the ruins of Paestum, one of several atmospheric but accurate etchings made by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. From Wikipedia.

Reaching Paestum

There's a train in each direction roughly every hour between Salerno and the Paestum station. The ruins are a little under 700 meters from the Paestum station, a short walk of less than ten minutes.

You enter the site near the Second Temple of Hera, built around 460 BCE. It's the best-preserved temple at Paestum, and some writers have described it as the best-preserved Greek temple anywhere.

Drain Line at Porta Giustizia

I have a page on my other site with the non-plumbing aspects of Paestum, including temple design features common across many civilizations. Check it out if you're interested, but I assume you're here for the plumbing of Paestum.

Porta Giustizia was one of the four main gates in the city wall. It's at the south end of the main street running through the city. A road ran from that gate to Agropoli, the nearby harbor. The other city gates were Porta Sirena, Porta Aurea, and Porta Marina.

Map of Paestum, north is to the right.

Here's the view along the south end of the main road, to the right in this picture. It runs toward and through Porta Giustizia, between trees in the distance. A drainage line runs beneath the city wall, a short distance to the left of the gateway as seen here, beyond the columns.

Some small surface drain channels are visible, running parallel to the street two to three meters to its side.

Above is the opening into the drain running out of the city beneath the wall beside the gate. The drain line carried rainwater and waste out of the city, at least as far as the ditch just outside the wall but probably into the Capodifiume river that ran from the hills, past the city, and to the coast.

Below are remnants of a smaller drainage line joining it.

Reconstruction work has blocked the original line a few meters into its passage beneath the wall, possibly to prevent a backwash of water into the site during rainy weather.

The below view looking back from the gate shows that this gate and drain line are at the end of the main street running past the west ends of the First Temple of Hera, just beyond the large tree to the right, and the Second Temple of Hera beyond that.

Residences

Almost all of the remains of homes you can see today are from the Roman period. There are only one or two exceptions from the earlier Greek period.

There are more details about this on my page about the plumbing at Pompeii, but when I was there I talked to an archaeologist about how I wasn't finding what I think of as the typical ancient Greek layout of a home with a private latrine.

What I've seen at, for example, the ancient sacred island of Delos, is that a home opulent enough to include a private latrine would typically have that latrine in a room immediately inside the door from the street. That makes for an easy and effective connection to the municipal drain line running beneath the center of the street. Here is a large opening into a drain running beneath one of the streets of Paestum.

She knew exactly what I was talking about, and explained that at Pompeii, and apparently also at Paestum, most of the homes followed a more Roman layout in which the toilet was inside the kitchen. That way the kitchen can use the toilet to dispose of food waste, like a two-millennium-old garbage disposal.

Ah, Rome, the height of culture, where everyone poops in the kitchen.

The House With The Large Swimming Pool

One of the houses near the center of what can be seen today was quite large, with a garden and a large swimming pool within the property walls.

Map of Paestum, north is to the right.

Here's the pool and surrounding garden, with the two Temples of Hera in the background. The short column stubs, full height then, would have supported a portico around the pool and garden. The entire property including the pool, garden, and the mansion itself covers an area of 2,800 m².

Water could be redirected to flow down these channels for an array of five waterfalls pouring into the large pool. Impressive!

The pool was deep enough, a couple of meters, and large enough, about 25 meters long by 10 meters wide, to swim sizeable laps.

Or, invite your friends over for swimming races.

The House With The Small Swimming Pool

The owners of a nearby house couldn't host swimming races. But they could open an amphora of wine and invite friends over to soak in the pool, drink some wine, and admire the aquatic-themed mosaic.

Recall that the original Greek settlers named the city Poseidonia, for the god of the sea. This poolside mosaic is Poseidon-themed. Very appropriate!

The pool was at least a meter and a half deep, with large steps to climb back out after your cannonball jump in.

Impluvia and Compluvia

The grand homes typically had an entrance leading to a series of three spaces — the atrium or inner courtyard, the tablinum or reception room, and the peristilium or porticoed garden. Off to the side would be bedrooms and a triclinum or dining room with benches along three of the walls on which the family and guests could recline for a meal.

The atrium was centered on an impluvium, a shallow rectangular pool that collected rainwater through the opening above it. A compluvium was a section of roof that sloped not toward the edge of the house but toward its center. It collected rainwater from a large area of the roof and drained it into a large rectangular opening above the impluvium.

All the large homes had impluvia collecting water for drinking, cooking, and washing.

Southern Bath

Of course there were public baths here. An elite home might have included a private latrine, but it wouldn't have had its own bath. A proper bath by Roman times included a series of rooms heated from beneath the floor to provide a sequence of increasing temperature — the frigidarium or cold room; tepidarium or warm room; and caldarium or hot room.

The low brick walls here are a tip-off that this is a bath.

Greek temples, along with temples of other cultures around the Mediterranean and on east to Mesopotamia, were usually built facing toward the east. That would allow the enshrined deity to look out from their dwelling within the innermost holy of holies structure within the temple, looking out over the large altar in front of the temple and beyond that toward the rising sun.

Beyond this public bath's mosaic with Latin text, you see the back ends of the First Temple of Hera at right and the Second Temple of Hera at left. The mountains largely covered by clouds are to the east of the city.

There would have been a communal latrine at this public bath, but I couldn't spot any obvious sign of it.

Central Bath

The large central bath is just south of the agora, an open area surrounded with rows of shops and possibly small shrines. The Romans called it a forum. A set of strip malls along two or three sides of a parking lot is the modern approximation to the concept.

This large bath definitely would have included a large public latrine.

The large central bath was undergoing restoration during my visit. Signs of the public latrine may become visible by the time the restoration is complete.

The Water-Filled Sanctuary of Venus Verticordia

The Greeks associated epithets with their deities — "Earth-Shaker", "Bringer of Lightning", "Thunderer", and so on. Local worship often focused on specific attributes of the deities as described by these epithets.

One of the epithets of Aphrodite or Αφροδίτη, the goddess of love, was Aphrodite Apostrophia, "Aphrodite of Turning Away".

The Romans translated that name and epithet into Venus Verticordia, "Venus the Turner of Hearts".

This unusual structure is most commonly interpreted as a Roman-period sanctuary for water-based rituals centered on Venus Verticordia.

The Romans believed that it was important for Venus Verticordia to redirect both virgins and sexually active women away from libido or dissolute desire toward pudicitia or sexual virtue. This redirection was not meant to suppress sexual desire, but instead to encourage its positive expression within marriage.

This large pool would have been filled with water. The stone structure with 73 pilasters supporting lintels then provided an almost-awash base for temporary wooden structures. The wooden structures, looking as if they were floating on the pool, were then used while performing rituals for Venus Verticordia.

These celebrations were part of Verneralia, celebrated through the month of April. A procession of participants would carry a statue of Venus Verticordia through the city to this pool. They would immerse the statue in the pool, wash it, and then wrap it in precious clothing and decorate it with flowers and jewelry.

Then the women would all remove their clothing and bathe repeatedly in the pool. While bathing, the married women would give hints and tips and advice to the young virgins.

What About the Modern Visitor?

Don't worry, the site has modern toilets for visitors!

This one is seatless, a design choice that may be unfamiliar to you, but which can be maintained in a far cleaner state in a public facility.

A modern toilet is ceramic with a vitreous or glass-like surface. Any liquid or, um, solid or semi-solid material that gets onto the rim can easily be wiped completely away. Fold-down plastic seats, on the other hand, are difficult to keep clean.