Pausanias (geographer)
Encyclopedia
Pausanias was a Greek
traveler and geographer
of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian
, Antoninus Pius
and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece
from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical literature and modern archaeology
. This is how Andrew Stewart assesses him:
; he was certainly familiar with the western coast of Asia Minor
, but his travels extended far beyond the limits of Ionia
. Before visiting Greece, he had been to Antioch
, Joppa and Jerusalem, and to the banks of the River Jordan. In Egypt
, he had seen the Pyramid
s, while at the temple of Ammon
, he had been shown the hymn once sent to that shrine by Pindar
. In Macedonia
, he appears to have seen the alleged tomb of Orpheus in Libethra. Crossing over to Italy
, he had seen something of the cities of Campania
and of the wonders of Rome
. He was one of the first to write of seeing the ruins of Troy
, Alexandria Troas
, and Mycenae
.
. The project is more than topographical; it is a cultural geography. Pausanias digresses from description of architectural and artistic objects to review the mythological and historical underpinnings of the society that produced them. As a Greek writing under the auspices of the Roman empire, he found himself in an awkward cultural space, between the glories of the Greek past he was so keen to describe and the realities of a Greece beholden to Rome as a dominating imperial force. His work bears the marks of his attempt to navigate that space and establish an identity for Roman Greece.
He is not a naturalist by any means, though he does from time to time comment on the physical realities of the Greek landscape. He notices the pine trees on the sandy coast of Elis
, the deer and the wild boars in the oak woods of Phelloe
, and the crows amid the giant oak trees of Alalcomenae
. It is mainly in the last section that Pausanias touches on the products of nature, such as the wild strawberries of Helicon, the date palms of Aulis
, and the olive oil of Tithorea
, as well as the tortoises of Arcadia
and the "white blackbirds" of Cyllene
.
Pausanias is most at home in describing the religious art and architecture of Olympia
and of Delphi
. Yet, even in the most secluded regions of Greece, he is fascinated by all kinds of quaint and primitive images of the gods, holy relics, and many other sacred and mysterious objects. At Thebes
he views the shields of those who died at the Battle of Leuctra
, the ruins of the house of Pindar
, and the statues of Hesiod
, Arion
, Thamyris
, and Orpheus
in the grove of the Muse
s on Helicon, as well as the portraits of Corinna
at Tanagra
and of Polybius
in the cities of Arcadia
.
Pausanias has the instincts of an antiquary. As his editor Christian Habicht
has said,
Pausanias' Periegesis, unlike a Baedeker guide
, stops for a brief excursus on a point of ancient ritual or to tell an apposite myth, in a genre that would not become popular again until the early 19th century. In the topographical part of his work, Pausanias is fond of digressions on the wonders of nature, the signs that herald the approach of an earthquake, the phenomena of the tides, the ice-bound seas of the north, and the noonday sun which at the summer solstice casts no shadow at Syene (Aswan
). While he never doubts the existence of the gods and heroes, he sometimes criticizes the myths and legends relating to them. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned. They bear the impression of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance. When he quotes a book at second hand he takes pains to say so.
The work, all ten volumes of it, was a failure. But not today. "It was not read," Habicht relates— "there is not a single mention of the author, not a single quotation from it, not a whisper before Stephanus Byzantius in the sixth century, and only two or three references to it throughout the Middle Ages". We came perilously close to losing it altogether, in fact: the only manuscripts of Pausanias are three 15th-century copies, full of errors and lacunae
, which all appear to depend on a single manuscript that survived to be copied. Niccolò Niccoli had this archetype in Florence in 1418; at his death in 1437 it went to the library of San Marco, Florence
, then disappeared after 1500. Until 20th century archaeologists found that Pausanias was a reliable guide to the sites they were excavating, Pausanias was largely dismissed by 19th- and early 20th century classicists of a purely literary bent, who followed the authoritative Wilamowitz
in discrediting him, as a purveyor of literature quoted at second-hand, who, it was suggested, had not actually visited most of the places he described. Habicht 1985 describes an embarrassing episode in which Wilamowitz was led astray by misreading Pausanias, in front of an august party of travellers, in 1873, and attributes to it Wilamowitz' lifelong antipathy and distrust of Pausanias. The experience of a century of archaeologists has fully vindicated him.
Roman Greece
Roman Greece is the period of Greek history following the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC until the reestablishment of the city of Byzantium and the naming of the city by the Emperor Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire...
traveler and geographer
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
, Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical literature and modern archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
. This is how Andrew Stewart assesses him:
A careful, pedestrian writer, he is interested not only in the grandiose or the exquisite but in unusual sights and obscure ritual. He is occasionally careless, or makes unwarranted inferences, and his guides or even his own notes sometimes mislead him; yet his honesty is unquestionable, and his value without par.
Biography
Pausanias was probably a native of LydiaLydia
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
; he was certainly familiar with the western coast of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, but his travels extended far beyond the limits of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
. Before visiting Greece, he had been to Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...
, Joppa and Jerusalem, and to the banks of the River Jordan. In Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, he had seen the Pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
s, while at the temple of Ammon
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
, he had been shown the hymn once sent to that shrine by Pindar
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
. In Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, he appears to have seen the alleged tomb of Orpheus in Libethra. Crossing over to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, he had seen something of the cities of Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
and of the wonders of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. He was one of the first to write of seeing the ruins of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
, Alexandria Troas
Alexandria Troas
Alexandria Troas is an ancient Greek city situated on the Aegean Sea near the northern tip of Turkey's western coast, a little south of Tenedos . It is located in the modern Turkish province of Çanakkale...
, and Mycenae
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
.
Work
Pausanias' Description of Greece is in ten books, each dedicated to some portion of Greece. He begins his tour in Attica, where the city of Athens and its demes dominate the discussion. Subsequent books describe Corinth, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaia, Arcadia, Boetia, Phocis and Ozolian Locris. He famously leaves out key portions of Greece such as CreteCrete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. The project is more than topographical; it is a cultural geography. Pausanias digresses from description of architectural and artistic objects to review the mythological and historical underpinnings of the society that produced them. As a Greek writing under the auspices of the Roman empire, he found himself in an awkward cultural space, between the glories of the Greek past he was so keen to describe and the realities of a Greece beholden to Rome as a dominating imperial force. His work bears the marks of his attempt to navigate that space and establish an identity for Roman Greece.
He is not a naturalist by any means, though he does from time to time comment on the physical realities of the Greek landscape. He notices the pine trees on the sandy coast of Elis
Elis
Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district that corresponds with the modern Elis peripheral unit...
, the deer and the wild boars in the oak woods of Phelloe
Seliana
Seliana also known as Phelloe is a Greek village located in north Peloponnese and more specifically in the east part of the prefecture of Achaea...
, and the crows amid the giant oak trees of Alalcomenae
Alalcomenae
- Alalcomenae, Boeotia :Now called Alalkomenes or Alalkomeni, Alalcomenae in Boeotia was on the south-west bank of Lake Copais, west of Haliartus , before the lake was drained. Stephanus of Byzantium refers to the town by the name Alalkomenion....
. It is mainly in the last section that Pausanias touches on the products of nature, such as the wild strawberries of Helicon, the date palms of Aulis
Aulis
Aulis may refer to:* Aulis, , an ancient Greek town in Boeotia, and traditionally the port from which the Greek army set sail for the Trojan War.* Aulis, a daughter of King Ogyges and Thebe*Aulis, a genus of ladybird beetle...
, and the olive oil of Tithorea
Tithorea
Tithorea is a village and a former municipality in Phthiotis, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Amfikleia-Elateia, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 4,759 . The seat of the municipality was in Kato Tithorea, which is served by the...
, as well as the tortoises of Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
and the "white blackbirds" of Cyllene
Mount Kyllini
Mount Kyllini or Mount Cyllene , is a mountain on the Peloponnesus peninsula in Greece, famous for its association with the god Hermes. It rises to above sea level, making it the second highest point on the peninsula. It is located near the border between the historic regions of Arcadia and...
.
Pausanias is most at home in describing the religious art and architecture of Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...
and of Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...
. Yet, even in the most secluded regions of Greece, he is fascinated by all kinds of quaint and primitive images of the gods, holy relics, and many other sacred and mysterious objects. At Thebes
Thebes, Greece
Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...
he views the shields of those who died at the Battle of Leuctra
Battle of Leuctra
The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought on July 6, 371 BC, between the Boeotians led by Thebans and the Spartans along with their allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict. The battle took place in the neighbourhood of Leuctra, a village in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae...
, the ruins of the house of Pindar
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
, and the statues of Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
, Arion
Arion
Arion was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb: "As a literary composition for chorus dithyramb was the creation of Arion of Corinth," The islanders of Lesbos claimed him as their native son, but Arion found a patron in Periander, tyrant of Corinth...
, Thamyris
Thamyris
In Greek mythology, Thamyris , son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope, was a Thracian singer who was so proud of his skill that he boasted he could outsing the Muses. He competed against them and lost. As punishment for his presumption they blinded him, and took away his ability to make poetry and...
, and Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
in the grove of the Muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
s on Helicon, as well as the portraits of Corinna
Corinna
Corinna or Korinna was an Ancient Greek poet, traditionally attributed to the 6th century BC. According to ancient sources such as Plutarch and Pausanias, she came from Tanagra in Boeotia, where she was a teacher and rival to the better-known Theban poet Pindar...
at Tanagra
Tanagra
Tanagra is a town and a municipality north of Athens in Boeotia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Schimatari. It is not far from Thebes, and it was noted in antiquity for the figurines named after it...
and of Polybius
Polybius
Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
in the cities of Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
.
Pausanias has the instincts of an antiquary. As his editor Christian Habicht
Christian Habicht (historian)
Christian Habicht is a German historian of ancient Greece and an epigrapher in ancient Greek.After his Promotierung at the University of Hamburg in 1952, Habicht was an assistant professor there and after his Habilitation degree in 1957 Privatdozent...
has said,
Pausanias' Periegesis, unlike a Baedeker guide
Baedeker
Verlag Karl Baedeker is a Germany-based publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred as simply "Baedekers" , contain important introductions, descriptions of buildings, of museum collections, etc., written by the best specialists, and...
, stops for a brief excursus on a point of ancient ritual or to tell an apposite myth, in a genre that would not become popular again until the early 19th century. In the topographical part of his work, Pausanias is fond of digressions on the wonders of nature, the signs that herald the approach of an earthquake, the phenomena of the tides, the ice-bound seas of the north, and the noonday sun which at the summer solstice casts no shadow at Syene (Aswan
Aswan
Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...
). While he never doubts the existence of the gods and heroes, he sometimes criticizes the myths and legends relating to them. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned. They bear the impression of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance. When he quotes a book at second hand he takes pains to say so.
The work, all ten volumes of it, was a failure. But not today. "It was not read," Habicht relates— "there is not a single mention of the author, not a single quotation from it, not a whisper before Stephanus Byzantius in the sixth century, and only two or three references to it throughout the Middle Ages". We came perilously close to losing it altogether, in fact: the only manuscripts of Pausanias are three 15th-century copies, full of errors and lacunae
Lacuna (manuscripts)
A lacunaPlural lacunae. From Latin lacūna , diminutive form of lacus . is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work...
, which all appear to depend on a single manuscript that survived to be copied. Niccolò Niccoli had this archetype in Florence in 1418; at his death in 1437 it went to the library of San Marco, Florence
San Marco, Florence
San Marco is the name of a religious complex in Florence, Italy. It comprises a church and a convent. The convent, which is now a museum, has three claims to fame: during the 15th century it was home to two famous Dominicans, the painter Fra Angelico and the preacher, Girolamo Savonarola...
, then disappeared after 1500. Until 20th century archaeologists found that Pausanias was a reliable guide to the sites they were excavating, Pausanias was largely dismissed by 19th- and early 20th century classicists of a purely literary bent, who followed the authoritative Wilamowitz
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was a German Classical Philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature.- Youth :...
in discrediting him, as a purveyor of literature quoted at second-hand, who, it was suggested, had not actually visited most of the places he described. Habicht 1985 describes an embarrassing episode in which Wilamowitz was led astray by misreading Pausanias, in front of an august party of travellers, in 1873, and attributes to it Wilamowitz' lifelong antipathy and distrust of Pausanias. The experience of a century of archaeologists has fully vindicated him.
Further reading
- Akujärvi, Johanna 2005, Researcher, Traveller, Narrator: Studies in Pausanias' Periegesis (Stockholm). ISBN 91-22-02134-5.
- Alcock, S.E., J.F. Cherry, and J. Elsner 2001, Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece (Oxford). ISBN 0-19-517132-2.
- Arafat, Karim W. 1996, Pausanias' Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers (Cambridge). ISBN 0-521-60418-4.
- Habicht, Christian 1985, Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece (Berkeley). ISBN 0-520-06170-5.
- Hutton, William 2005, Describing Greece: Landscape and Literature in the Periegesis of Pausanias (Cambridge). ISBN 0-521-84720-6.
- Levi, Peter (tr.) 1984a, 1984b, Pausanias: Guide to Greece, 2 vols. (Penguin). Vol. 1 Central Greece ISBN 0-14-044225-1; vol. 2 Southern Greece ISBN 0-14-044226-X.
- Pirenne-Delforge, Vincia, Retour à la source. Pausanias et la religion grecque (Liège: Centre international d’Étude de la religion Grecque Ancienne, 2008) (Kernos Suppléments, 20).
- Pretzler, Maria. 2004, "Turning Travel into Text: Pausanias at work", Greece & Rome, Vol. 51, Issue 2, pp. 199–216.
- Pretzler, Maria. 2007, Pausanias. Travel Writing in Ancient Greece (London). ISBN 978-0715634967.
External links
- Pausanias Description of Greece, tr. with a commentary by J.G. Frazer (1898) Volume 1 (also at the Internet Archive)
- Pausanias at the Perseus Project: Greek; English