GOLFO DI SALERNO

 In 268 BC, Romans deported, from the Adriatic coast, 360 thousand Picentini (an ancient Italic people), founding among other things the town of Picentia (now Pontecagnano).  In Hannibal’s military campaigns in Southern Italy, during the Second Punic War (218-202 BC), the Picentini rose up and came over to the Carthaginian. For this reason, at the end of the conflict, the Romans forced them to live scattered on the territory. The city was violently destroyed during the Social War (90-89 BC) and there was the consequent dispersion of the inhabitants in smaller suburban villages.

Paestum was a major ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Magna Graecia (southern Italy). It was established by Dorians. After its foundation by Greek colonists under the name of Poseidonia, it was eventually conquered by the local Lucanians and later the Romans. The Lucanians renamed it to Paistos and the Romans gave the city its current name. The city is famous for its Ancient Greek fresco as well as three ancient Greek temples of the Doric order, dating from about 600 to 450 BC, all of which are in a remarkable state of preservation. The city walls and amphitheater are largely intact, and the bottom of the walls of many other structures remain, as well as the cobblestone roads that still cross the city. However, the necropolis nearby holds one of the most spectacular treasures of all that are to be found in Paestum. The “Tomb of the Diver” has the only preserved fresco, or wall painting, from the Greek classical period anywhere in the entire world. The tomb may sh...

The toponym Salernum, rather than from the traditional "salum", that is sea, derives more probably from the prelatin hydronymy base "sal", that is channel, watercourse, or, rather, marsh (Sal-ernum, place of marshes, once existing near the it costs). Regarding the origin of the name, among other hypotheses, Antonio Mazza wrote that Patriarch Noè came twice to Italy, and the second time he lived there for thirty-three years; that falling in love with the waters of the Irno river, he ordered his eldest son to embellish its right bank with a city; that out of devout obedience Sem threw the first stone and, after several years, Salt son of Arfaxad, and great-grandson of Noè, accomplished the noble city, giving it his name coupled to the Irno. Thus removing the contradiction between the acts of SS. Martiri Fortunato, Gaio e Ante, and the name Salerno: Sale, Mazza says, "filium Arfaxad, Noe pronepotem Salernum condidisse, illique nomen dedisse: nec contradiclionem im...