PYXUS or BUXENTUM, between Laos and Posidonia, was founded by the Rhegines at the time of Anaxilaus and Micythus, who were contemporaries of Darius Hystaspis. There can be no doubt that it was afterwards taken by the Lucanians, but it was snatched from them by the Romans, who surrendered it to the Campanians at the settlement they made with them, whence Buxentum is afterwards mentioned among the Campanian towns. After the Hannibalian war, the Romans established a colony there. ELEA or VELIA, a town which preserved its Greek character in a wonderful manner, was situated not far from Buxentum. It was a colony of the Phocaeans, established in the reign of Cyrus, after they had in vain endeavoured to form a settlement in Corsica (Olymp. 60). In the history of literature, Elea is remarkable for the great and profound philosophers who formed the Eleatic school. As Amalfi, though surrounded by Lombard armies, preserved its pure Italian and Roman character, so Elea remained a Greek place down to the latest times. The father of the poet Statius was a Greek of Elea, and Statius’ _Graia Selle_ is nothing else than Elea, as Markland has shown; some persons have strangely referred it to Epirus, and some perhaps do so still. Elea was allied with Rome, and was honoured and distinguished by her. It perished at a time which can no longer be defined, in consequence of the ravages of barbarians. POSIDONIA or PAESTUM was the most powerful among the Greek cities on that coast. The place still has the most beautiful Greek ruins in all Italy, and three ancient temples are preserved there in tolerable completeness; before the first half of the eighteenth century, they were not known at all, for they were not discovered till 1730. The cause of this may have been the circumstance, that they are situated in a very pestilential and deserted district; but at present they are known to everybody. The ruins belong to the ancient Greek period, when Posidonia was still powerful. There have also been found great numbers of coins of a very ancient style, resembling those of Sybaris, which are at least as old as the sixtieth Olympiad, and perhaps even older. Posidonia was conquered by the Lucanians, though it is unknown at what time, and it remained under their dominion until the war of Pyrrhus, when the Romans established a colony there under the name of Paestum. The fact, that previously the Lucanians had a colony there, is clear from the account of Aristoxenus, in Athenaeus, about an annual festival which the inhabitants celebrated quite in the ancient Greek fashion, and at which they, among other things, complained of their losing their Greek character and peculiarities, and of their becoming barbarians in consequence of their being ruled over by barbarians. Athenaeus indeed mentions the Romans as their rulers, but he is either mistaken in the name, or the book which he quotes was not by Aristoxenus, but a _pseudepigraphon_, which is certainly possible.