Present&Past

Positano is a small world today, an intimate place so to say. But it has an unknown, potentially "big" history, embedded as its origins are in the midst of Magna Grecia, Greater Greece area. 

The Magna Grecia area in the Gulf of Naples first centered around Cumae, founded by Ionian settlers probably arriving from both the island of Euboia and the Asia Minor region. It was the first region of Italy to be settled in the 8th century BC. Paradoxically, the first settlements took place not on the coast of Italy facing Greece but the Greeks settled on the opposite, western coast of the Tyrrhenian sea first.

The second wave of settlers settled to the south of Positano, around Paestum (Posidonia). So which were the ones that claimed the Positano area? We do not know for sure, but it tends to have been the settlers from the South, the Dorian settlers, that moved up the coast towards Salerno and Amalfi and then on towards the Positano area. Of course they were also connected to Cumae in the Gulf of Naples and Nea-polis itself later on. What we don't know, and don't think that Positano at these times played a major role in the Greek settlement policy, if there ever was one, as all the polis - states centered around themselves. Still, but this could be co-incidence, Positano bears a stark resemblance to Greek architecture styles today, as does Capri and many other small villages along the Amalfi coast, much more than the villages on the opposite northern coast of the Sorrento Peninsula such as Sorrento itself.

What we know is that a temple had been built in honor of Athena, or Minerva as is the name of the Goddess in Latin, at Punta Campanella. So even though no major Greek settlements sprang up in the Positano area, Greeks passed there and might have built villas along the coast. Of course, a lot remains to be discovered. For example, the Ulisses Saga by Homer mentions this area and the islands Li Galli, which in the myth were said to be either home to the sirenuse, siren maids trying to seduce Ulysess but failing and thus throwing themselves into the sea. Or these rocky cliffs might as well represent their bodies that turned to rock in one variant of the legend ...