Temple of Athena

Capaccio Paestum, Italy

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At Paestum in southern Italy stands the Temple of Athena, a Greek sanctuary built around 500 BC during the height of Magna Graecia. Originally misidentified as a temple to Ceres, it was correctly attributed to Athena after the discovery of numerous terracotta statuettes of the goddess. Elevated on an artificial platform, the temple displays the hallmark Doric order with slender columns supporting a high pediment and a frieze adorned with sandstone-encased metopes. Its interior pronaos notably contains six Ionic columns—a pioneering architectural feature that marked one of the first known instances of Doric and Ionic orders coexisting in a single building. Though the deep cella once housing Athena's cult statue has been largely destroyed, the bases and two ornate Ionic capitals remain. In late antiquity, around the eighth century, the structure was repurposed as a Christian church, with walls inserted between columns and the cella dismantled. Archaeological excavations in the 1940s removed these later modifications, revealing the temple's original form.