own received the name of Paestum, and its
inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence, were forbidden to
carry arms, and were probably in many instances reduced to the level of
serfs. A large number of Samnites also settled within the walls of the
town, and compelled the former owners to surrender to them the larger and
richer portion of the public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
The use of the Hellenic language and public worship were however
permitted, and, strange to relate, no interference was made with a solemn
annual festival, which the depressed and enslaved population now
inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering for ever their Greek
origin and their former greatness. For once a year at a fixed date all
Greeks were wont to gather together and to bewail in public, outside the
great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and their vanished power. It
is evident that the Lucanians did not fear the tears and lamentations of
this unhappy subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression, and survived even till
Roman times--perhaps to the very end of the city's existence,--although in
the course of passing generations there could have been but few persons of
pure Greek descent left in the place.

With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had been called into Italy by
the Greeks of Tarentum in order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of
Magna Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of the Silarus.
Under the very walls of Paestum there now took place a stubborn fight
wherein the army of the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods and rocky valleys
of the Lucanian hills. For a brief interval of years Poseidonia regained
its lost liberty and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and death
of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes pressed down once more from
their mountain fastnesses upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race. Forty years later,
after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania fell under the rising power of Rome, a
change that was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities, which were
groaning under the rude tyranny of the Samnites. A Latin colony was now
planted at Paestum, to form a convenient centre whence the neighbouring
district could be kept in order and peaceably developed according to Ro