CILENTO HISTORY | www.cilentano.it - Cilento history
CILENTO HISTORY
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Introduction to the history of Cilento
The history of Cilento has hosted small and large events, up until today: Cesare Ottaviano Augusto made it a province to raise animals and cultivate food intended for Roman tables, the medieval period with the advent of the Lombards, the Basilian and Benedictine monks, the birth of the Barony with the Sanseverinos, their revolt in Capaccio in 1246 against Frederick II, up to the first "Cilento riots" of 1828, with the insurrection against Francis I of Bourbon and his ministers, followed twenty years later by new riots anti-Bourbons, therefore to joining the unification of Italy which was quickly followed by the years of post-unification brigandage.
Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni are certainly places full of history and culture. Cilento is a land whose geo-morphological conformation dates back to 500.000 years ago. Together with Vallo di Diano, Cilento was part of Lucania in Roman times. Better known as the "Land of Myth", it hosted Greek, Lucanian and Roman settlements.
“Many of the Greek and Roman myths were set on its shores. The most famous myth is that of the island of the sirens, in the Odyssey. Those evil creatures who, according to Homer, radiated a song that drove passing sailors crazy, leading them to crash their boats on the rocks. The small island that inspired the Singer of antiquity is probably the one in front of Punta "Licosa", to the south near Punta Licosa. ”.
(cit. wikipedia)
Before talking about history, we must talk about prehistory: in Marina di Camerota it is possible to admire caves and cliffs guardians of a thousand-year history. The peculiarity consists in having discovered that Neanderthals and Sapiens lived at the same time in these parts as evidenced by the finds discovered. The discovery of an elephant is recent, in the cave adjacent to the one called "della cala", in Marina di Camerota, the hill cave, dating back to prehistoric times. APalinuro materials from the stone industry were found in the Caves of Castelcivita, in San Giovanni a Piro e Saint Mark of Castellabate Paleolithic finds have been found. In Capaccio and Paestum, where funerary objects from the Neolithic age of the local Gaudo civilization have emerged. The remains of Fistelia, a Lucanian city of ancient splendor, can be admired in Roccagloriosa.
In Paestum it is possible to admire an ancient city of Magna Graecia called by the Greeks Poseidonia in honor of Poseidon, but very devoted to Athena and Hera. After its conquest by the Lucanians she was called Paistom, and then assumed, under the Romans, the name of Paestum. The extension of its inhabited area is still clearly recognizable today, enclosed by its Greek walls, as modified in the Lucanian and then Roman periods.
"The amazement experienced by eighteenth-century travelers in front of the testimonies of the classical world was destined to be repeated up to the present: the sculpted frieze of the first temple of Hera on the Sele river, the Tomb of the Diver, the bronze vases from the Heroon... works today exhibited in the museum that question and they irritate the observer, speaking of a world that has passed, "totally foreign" to our gaze, as Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote. (cit. )"
The excavations of Velia for the Romans (or Elea for the Greeks) they represent one of the jewels of Cilento. The ancient acropolis of Elea (Velia), where today an interesting medieval fortification stands, houses the famous Porta Rosa, the only example of a Greek arch from the 510th century. Velia was the city where Parmenides was born and lived (between approximately 435 and XNUMX BC).
"For Parmenides there was no creation as Being cannot be born from nothing (non-Being). Furthermore, he compares this Being to a sphere, because it is the only solid that is equal in all its parts. It is interesting to note that Einstein in his theory of relativity sees the Universe in the same way, as a sphere. According to Parmenides, thinking implies being, that is, if I can think of something then it exists. In practice, if I thought of a ghost then this ghost exists, because somehow, simply by thinking about it I gave it life, maybe only in my brain but it exists."
