Editing Magna Graecia (section)

===Poseidonia and Elea===
{{main|Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni}}
[[File:Velia Excavation and Tower.jpg|thumb|Remains of the ancient Greek city of [[Velia|Elea]]]]

[[Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni|Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park]] ([[Italian language|Italian]] ''Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni'') is an [[List of National Parks of Italy|Italian national park]] in the [[Province of Salerno]], in [[Campania]] in southern Italy. It includes much of the [[Cilento]], the [[Vallo di Diano]] and the [[Monti Alburni]]. It was founded in 1991, and was formerly known as the Parco Nazionale del Cilento e Vallo di Diano. In 1998 it became a [[World Heritage Site]] of [[UNESCO]],<ref>[https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/842 Info on whc.unesco.org]</ref> along with the ancient Greek towns of [[Paestum|Poseidonia]], [[Velia|Elea]] and the [[Padula]]{{efn|Municipality not included in the park but part of Vallo di Diano region.}} [[Certosa di Padula|Charterhouse]].

Much of the most celebrated features of the [[Paestum|Poseidonia]] site today are the three large temples in the Archaic version of the Greek [[Doric order]], dating from about 550 to 450 BC. All are typical of the period,{{efn|Indeed, they very often are used to illustrate the style in architectural books.}} with massive colonnades having a very pronounced [[entasis]] (widening as they go down), and very wide capitals resembling upturned mushrooms. Above the columns, only the [[Temple of Hera (also called of Neptune), Paestum|second Temple of Hera]] retains most of its [[entablature]], the other two having only the [[architrave]] in place. These were dedicated to [[Hera]] and [[Athena]] ([[Juno (mythology)|Juno]] and [[Minerva]] to the Romans), although previously they often have been identified otherwise, following eighteenth-century arguments. The two temples of Hera are right next to each other, while the Temple of Athena is on the other side of the town centre. There were other temples, both Greek and Roman, which are far less well preserved.

Remains of [[Velia|Elea]] walls, with traces of one gate and several towers, of a total length of over three miles, still exist, and belong to three different periods, in all of which the crystalline limestone of the locality is used. Bricks were also employed in later times; their form is peculiar to this place, each having two rectangular channels on one side, and being about 1.5 inches square, with a thickness of nearly 4 inches They all bear Greek brick-stamps. There are some remains of cisterns on the site, and, various other traces of buildings.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Velia|volume=27|page=978|first=Thomas|last=Ashby|author-link=Thomas Ashby (archaeologist)}}</ref>