Pausanias ( ; ; ) was a Greek traveler and

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

of the second century AD. He is famous for his '' Description of Greece'' (, ), a lengthy work that describes

ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

from his firsthand observations. ''Description of Greece'' provides crucial information for making links between classical literature and modern archaeology, which is providing evidence of the sites and cultural details he mentions although knowledge of their existence may have become lost or relegated to myth or legend.

Biography

Nothing is known about Pausanias apart from what historians can piece together from his own writing. However, it is probable that he was born into a Greek family and was probably a native of Lydia in Asia Minor. From until his death around 180, Pausanias travelled throughout the mainland of Greece, writing about various monuments, sacred spaces, and significant geographical sites along the way. In writing his '' Description of Greece'', Pausanias sought to put together a lasting written account of "all things Greek", or ''panta ta hellenika''.

Living in the Roman Empire

Being born in Asia Minor, Pausanias was of Greek heritage. He grew up and lived under the rule of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, but valued his Greek identity, history, and culture. He was keen to describe the glories of a Greek past that still was relevant in his lifetime, even if the country was beholden to Rome as a dominating imperial force. Pausanias's pilgrimage throughout the land of his ancestors was his own attempt to establish a place in the world for this new Roman Greece, connecting myths and stories of ancient culture to those of his own time.

Writing style

Pausanias has a straightforward and simple writing style. He is, overall, direct in his language, writing his stories and descriptions unelaborately. However, some translators have noted that Pausanias's use of various prepositions and tenses may be confusing and difficult to render in English. For example, Pausanias may use a past tense verb rather than the present tense in some instances. Their interpretation is that he did this in order to make it seem as if he were in the same temporal setting as his audience. Unlike a modern day travel guide, in '' Description of Greece'' Pausanias tends to elaborate with discussion of an ancient ritual or to impart a myth related to the site he is visiting. His style of writing would not become popular again until the early nineteenth century when contemporary travel guides resembled his. In the topographical aspect of his work, Pausanias makes many natural history digressions on the wonders of nature documented at the time, the signs that herald the approach of an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

, the phenomena of the tides, the ice-bound seas of the north, and that at the

summer solstice The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). The summer solstice is the day with the longest peri ...

the noonday sun casts no shadow at Syene ( Aswan). While he never doubts the existence of the deities and heroes, he criticizes some of the myths and legends he encountered during his travels as differing from earlier cultural traditions that he relates or notes. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned, bearing a solid impression of reality. Pausanias is frank in acknowledging personal limitations. When he quotes information at second hand rather than relating his own experiences, he is honest about his sourcing, sometimes confirming contemporary knowledge by him that may be lost to modern researchers.

Modern reception

Until twentieth-century archaeologists concluded that Pausanias was a reliable guide to sites being excavated, classicists largely had dismissed his writings as purely literary. Following their presumed authoritative contemporary Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, classicists tended to regard him as little more than a purveyor of second-hand accounts and believed that he had not visited most of the places that he described. Modern archaeological research, however, has revealed the accuracy of information imparted by Pausanias, and even its potential as a guide for further investigations. Research into Tartessos exemplifies where his writing about it is aiding contemporary archaeological research into its existence, location, and culture.Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.19.2
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References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * Howard, Michael C. (2012). ''Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies: The Role of Cross-Border Trade and Travel''. McFarland. p. 178. * Hutton, William. Describing Greece: Landscape and Literature in the Periegesis of Pausanias. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2008. * * * *

External links

''Pausanias Description of Greece''
tr. with a commentary by J.G. Frazer, 6 volumes (1898) (als
at the Internet Archive
* Pausanias at the Perseus Project
GreekEnglish (Jones trans. 1918)

Jones translation at Theoi Project
New translation
by Gregory Nagy of Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies (incomplete). (archived, 2020)
Bibliography (in French)
* "The Oldest Guide-Book in the World", Charles Whibley in ''Macmillan's Magazine'', Vol. LXXVII, Nov. 1897 to Apr. 1898, pp. 415–421.
Andrew Stewart, ''One Hundred Greek Sculptors, Their Careers and Extant Works''
* G. Hawes, ''Rationalizing myth in antiquity''. Oxford: OUP, 2013 contains much discussion of Pausanias' sceptical approaches to myth. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pausanias Ancient Greek geographers Ancient Greek travel writers Ancient Roman geographers 2nd-century writers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 2nd-century geographers 2nd-century travelers Lydians