Gods Await You at Paestum

I’d never been to Paestum, the archaeological park about 60 miles south of Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea and site of what might be the three best-preserved Doric temples from ancient Greece. It’s an arresting experience. To say it the best I can, they put me in an awed state of mind because they seem to have been built by the gods themselves, hewing and placing mammoth stones and columns with an exactitude of a man — or woman — building his or her own home. The temples are balanced, majestic, and elegant, a combination that’s divine anyway we see it.

And the supreme flower of the austere Doric style those gods preferred. Hera, Poseidon, and Athena might not be there anymore, but let’s not quibble about what the Greeks understood more than 2,500 years ago and what we do and don’t grasp now.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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I’d never been to Paestum, the archaeological park about 60 miles south of Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea and site of what might be the three best-preserved Doric temples from ancient Greece. It’s an arresting experience. To say it the best I can, they put me in an awed state of mind because they seem to have been built by the gods themselves, hewing and placing mammoth stones and columns with an exactitude of a man — or woman — building his or her own home. The temples are balanced, majestic, and elegant, a combination that’s divine anyway we see it.

And the supreme flower of the austere Doric style those gods preferred. Hera, Poseidon, and Athena might not be there anymore, but let’s not quibble about what the Greeks understood more than 2,500 years ago and what we do and don’t grasp now.