Velia is famous for being the home of the school of philosophy of Parmenides and Zeno. In addition to the eleatic school, the archaeological site of Velia still tells the story of a great city of Magna Grecia with its citizens, its daily life, its public and private spaces.
The foundation dates back to about 540 B.C. by the inhabitants of Phocaea, a city in present-day Turkey, who left the homeland because they were besieged by the Persians. After a long journey aboard very fast ships, the exiles arrive in the Mediterranean Sea and settle in the bay south of the gulf of Poseidonia, on the coast of the Cilento. The city is called Hyele, named after a spring, and then Elea and Velia in Roman times.
The city occupies a high part, the acropolis, and the hilly slopes behind and is surrounded by a wide circuit of walls that follows the natural profile of the soils. Inside, the urban space is divided into three distinct districts, still visible today, connected by valleys, one of which is monumentalized by the construction of the extraordinary "Porta Rosa", the oldest example of round arch in Italy.
