Pausanias (in Greek: Παυσανίας; 2nd century AD) was a Greek historian, traveler, and geographer who lived during the time of the emperors Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. He is known for his work “Description of Greece,” in which he portrayed ancient Greece based on first-hand witnesses.
Biography
Little is known about Pausanias. There is no reference in ancient literature, and the author never indicates his name throughout the work or mentions his place of origin. We only gather information from scattered clues in the writings collected about his journey through Greece, compiled in his book “Description of Greece.” Regarding his birthplace, it is believed to be Lydia, in a city called Magnesia, in the region of Mount Sipylus located in Asia Minor. The date of his birth could be around 110 or 115 AD, as the favorite of Hadrian, Antinous, whom Pausanias might have known, died in 130 AD.
We can also assume that he lived until almost 180 AD, as he mentions the invasion of Greece in 176 AD by the Costoboci tribe. Therefore, Pausanias lived and wrote during the 2nd century of our era, a time when Greece and all the countries he knew were part of the Roman Empire. Thus, in this era that looked to the past and aimed to preserve the disappearing Greek civilization, a “description of Greece” like the one Pausanias left us fits perfectly, detailing its monuments, history, and legends—a description of Hellenic culture. From his writings, we can infer that Pausanias traveled to many countries.
The peace enjoyed by the Roman Empire during the 2nd century AD allowed him to travel relatively safely. Pausanias belonged to the privileged members of the municipal aristocracy, having the means and connections to acquire an expensive education through readings and travels. We also know that he established relationships with illustrious personalities such as the emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, Greek-origin senators like Herodes Atticus and Antonius Pitodorus, and several Olympic champions.
Thanks to some information provided, we can precisely date the time of his literary activity, as he mentions on one occasion that 217 years had passed since the refoundation of the city of Corinth by Julius Caesar in 44 BC. This places his journey around 174 AD during the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The fact that Marcus Aurelius is the last emperor mentioned in his work, and he died in 180 AD, suggests that around these years or slightly earlier, Pausanias concluded his project, which he might have initiated about 20 years earlier, around 155 AD. It is believed that it was not continuous work due to his travels. He began the work with full maturity.
His works reveal that he was a man shaped by classical tradition with a common mind, lacking a particular talent but possessing great enthusiasm and honesty in accordance with the conditions of the era in which he lived. In the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the polemical vigor observed in the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st centuries BC diminishes. The time of Pausanias is more conformist because it is more disillusioned. Perhaps precisely because he was an ordinary and unpretentious man, he better reflected the concerns and aspirations of Hellenism. Pausanias was a man, as described by M. Fernández Galiano, sympathetic, honest, diligent, and prudent.
His Thought and Ideology
It has often been said that Pausanias’ true interest was in religion. He appears as a believer and supporter of ancient Greek religion in all its forms of manifestation. It should be noted that he was initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis, knew the mysteries of Andania (second in importance after those of Eleusis), consulted with faith the oracle of Trophonius in Lebadea, and described sacrifices and prayers with seriousness and without any trace of irony. It is surprising to find in such a late period a Greek man who approached all kinds of myths and legends with absolute credulity and religious spirit. Despite his beliefs, it must be said that he was heavily influenced by the characteristics of the Hellenistic era as opposed to the classical period. In his writings, these two particularities that denoted Pausanias’ historical consciousness and shaped his character were evident.
Jas Elsner sees him as a pilgrim: Pausanias harbored a deep and sincere piety in his heart; he had faith in divinity and never doubted the existence of the gods. (Quoted by Herrero Ingelmo) Pausanias, despite having a traditional spirit, rationalized myths and legends, revealing a deep and philosophical idea of divinity. For example, speaking of the myth of Actaeon, whom the goddess Artemis turned into a deer so that the hounds would tear him apart for having seen her bathing, he said that he believed that Actaeon’s hounds, without the need for the goddess, were affected by rabies, causing them to go mad and attack the first thing they encountered. According to Pausanias, it was a case of hydrophobia.
He believed in the gods and also believed that they took care of humans following the concept of divine providence, much criticized in the Hellenistic era but in which he firmly believed. However, he accepted the monotheistic tendency of his time. On the contrary, he opposed another strong current of the time, that of the absolute rule of the goddess Fortune. Throughout the world, says Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist., II, 22), everywhere, at all times, the voices of all humans invoke only Fortune; only she is accused, only she is guilty, only she is thought of… Pausanias was religious in a traditional way mixed with fragments of contemporary thought.
Likewise, he seemed tired of politics. He appeared lukewarm, conformist, and an opponent of democracy, perhaps due to the self-awareness of the era derived from the history of Greek cities. With democracy, according to his words, no one has yet prospered, as far as we know, except the Athenians.
Pausanias was a man of classical spirit living in an era foreign to him. He missed the Greece of Daedalus, Phidias, and Praxiteles, not that of Scopas or Lysippus. The Greece he loved no longer existed, and as a result, Pausanias, who, from the perspective of historical consciousness, was an apparently obscure man without his own radiance, reflected glimpses of the thought of his time, the same time that conditioned him.
His Style
In his writing, Pausanias did not settle for putting notes and memories together but also offered critiques and, although not scientific, rejected what did not seem probable, and in case he did so, he warned the reader about it. His style was simple and unpretentious. The subjects he dealt with did not require literary embellishments, and except for two exceptions, the narration unfolded in a straightforward and unadorned manner. The first exception was that, like other Hellenistic writers, Pausanias used overly complicated expressions to explain very simple ideas, and the second was that the vehemence with which he transcribed some of them ended up generating doubts about their meaning.
Although Pausanias’ work has been of great help to both archaeologists and Hellenists in interpreting the map of Greece, not everyone liked it, as Pausanias writes but is not a writer.
He wrote in a transparent manner, without showing any personal interest in his work. His work did not depict him as a man with an enthusiastic personality, as he did not express love or hatred in his writings. What he did express, albeit in a restrained manner, was his admiration for the beauties and glories of Greece, mainly the mother Greece. He also manifested patriotism and the profound sadness he felt for the decline that led Greece to be ruled by others and to become a Roman province. He lamented the fact that Greece was governed by foreigners who had not contributed to Greek culture, just as he was an enemy of all those who had threatened or diminished the freedom of the Greeks.
Pausanias’ main interest lay in the sanctuaries, statues, tombs, and legends associated with them, and he, like modern-day tourists, paid attention to superficial details rather than the true artistic qualities. For example, when describing a statue, he explained what was worth seeing based on size and greater or lesser grace, but rarely offered a critical appreciation.
Pausanias blended myths, legends, oracles, and prophecies with descriptions of places and buildings, as well as snippets of folklore and history. With these digressions, he often deviated from the narrative, interrupting its flow and showing more concern for the history of the places than for their beauty. As mentioned earlier, Pausanias’ work was not intended to be a work of art but rather information.
Likewise, he never omitted mentioning a name if he could help it. As W. H. S. Jones explains, Pausanias has a voracious appetite for names that he never forgets to mention if he can provide them. Artists, builders, those who dedicated ex-votos, figures from history and legend, catalogs, and genealogies are the ones most frequently mentioned. Nowadays, these names tell us little, but to the Greek ears of his time, they sounded tender and familiar because they derived from the stories of their childhood, the poetry of their national exploits, and the chants and poems of their religious festivals.
In “Description of Greece,” we see that Pausanias is far from providing a complete description of ancient Greece. Geological features, landscapes, the overall appearance of cities and towns, the work of peasants and merchants, and the power and efficiency of the country—all the things that would concern a modern author today—occupied a very small part of his narrative. To some extent, this was a response to the needs of the ancient reader. For example, the Greek people, and indeed ancient peoples in general, tended to appreciate the landscape in a lesser or different way than today’s readers. But the main reason for the peculiar character of this work is that Pausanias wrote it for a limited audience with little interest in economic and industrial matters. As the author tells us, the reader Pausanias had in mind when writing was the tourist, visiting Greece for pleasure.
It is interesting to observe that in the 2nd century AD, many people traveled solely for pleasure, much like modern tourists. We have as evidence not only the work of Pausanias but also numerous references within it to Cicero, individuals who, like today’s tour guides, led travelers to different places, providing them with views and embellishing the visit with narratives and gossip. Pausanias was also one of these tourists and traveled extensively. It seems that, in addition to exploring Greece thoroughly, he was familiar with much of the western and central regions of Asia.
He spoke of Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, and Syria. He visited Egypt, where he explored the pyramids and the Colossi of Memnon. He also knew Byzantium, Rome, Campania, and Leontinoi in Sicily. The modern reader of Pausanias might be disappointed because the information received is often scant and of such a nature that the reader cannot visualize the place or object being described accurately. However, the narrative dryness and the enumeration of places without adequate descriptions indicate that he conceived and wrote his work as a guide accompanying tourists on their journeys, showing them what to look for. He did not intend to provide information about something that could be observed at first sight.
Pausanias’ Work
Periegesis (in Greek, περιήγησις),
The Greeks were the first to develop a “literature of travel.” They began by compiling diverse practical information for sailors. This new literary genre was called “periplous.” Over time, these periploi began to expand with various details about the customs of the visited areas, branching away from mere navigation.
This type of literature was called periègesi and could be considered the precursor of today’s travel literature, differentiating it from periploi as they were merely navigation guides for ships. Periègesi is a type of indirect documentary source, a literary genre that was very popular in the Hellenistic period. The periegetes narrated a story with a specific geographic route, describing the inhabitants, their history, customs, and mythology, and conducting a study that nowadays we might call anthropological. All of this was explained through the author’s own experience.
Content of the Book
It is a unique work with no prologue or epilogue, and Pausanias never gives it a title, as the title “Periégesis tês Helládos” (Description of Greece) is given by Stephanus of Byzantium. It is considered travel literature, a genre that poets like Homer or Apollonius of Rhodes, historians like Herodotus, or fiction authors like Lucian and Philostratus contributed to. Since the end of the work is somewhat abrupt, the question has arisen whether a part has been lost or if Pausanias intended to write more but ultimately did not.
He wanted to describe “all of Greece,” although in the end, he reduced it to a journey through the central and southern regions of the Greek mainland, leaving out the more northern and western regions. His work is not exhaustive. It is the result of a task of selection and contrast that reveals his more personal concerns and preferences. The ten books describe places, monuments, works of art narrating myths and legends, and historical events; he collected things that were “more worthy of mention” or “more moral,” all related to worship and religion.
His project focused on reconstructing Greece’s mythical and glorious past, and therefore, it only included elements that decisively contributed to shaping this ideal stereotype, such as the most representative monuments, foundational myths, and stories that were most significant in reflecting the greatness and value that had constituted the hallmark of the ancestors’ identity.
The Description of Greece is divided into ten books dedicated to the following regions:
- Book I: Attica and Megara
- Book II: Corinth, Argolis, as well as Aegina and the surrounding islands
- Book III: Laconia
- Book IV: Messenia
- Book V: Elis and Olympia
- Book VI: Elis (second part)
- Book VII: Achaea
- Book VIII: Arcadia
- Book IX: Boeotia
- Book X: Phocis and Locris
Pausanias’ Descriptive Method
Pausanias visited Greece and described it in the 2nd century AD. But as a lover of Greece’s glorious era, i.e., from the formation of the Hellenic peoples to their zenith, he takes the opportunity to explain the histories of the foundations of famous city-states and their sanctuaries (Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Epidaurus, Delphi, etc.), as well as stories about their periods of glory. He also mentions their leaders, provides detailed descriptions of places where significant battles for Greece’s freedom took place, narrates mythological themes, and recounts legends about the gods and heroes of classical Greece.
In his extensive travelogue, Pausanias shows us cities, roads, mountains, rivers, monuments, and statues that he encountered. He explains the regions he visits, heading from the border directly to the capital via the shortest route, indicating relevant details. Once in the polis (what we now call the capital of the region), he goes to the agora; he describes the most important civil and religious buildings there, as well as the religious buildings on the Acropolis (the acropolis and agora were close in Greek cities). He then describes the region surrounding the polis, with its hamlets, temples, tombs, sacred springs, etc.
Once a path is completed, he returns through another to the polis, then leaves by a different one. When he has covered and described the entire region, he goes to the border and crosses into the neighboring region. This topographical method allows him to describe a vast number of points and locations meticulously. As Sir James Frazer says: “We must congratulate ourselves that out of the general wreck of classical literature the Description of Greece by Pausanias has come down to us entire. The work gives us a lively, eyewitness account of the state and condition of Greece in the second century of our era.”
The work was first published in Venice in 1516 by Aldus. James Frazer edited the first English translation of Pausanias in 1898, in six volumes.
Sources
Pausanias talks very little about the sources he used; he does not cite the works he consulted, and most of the ones he cites have either been lost or only fragments remain. A distinction must be made between the historical or explanatory part and the periegetic or descriptive part. For the former, he must have necessarily depended on written documents or oral accounts.
For the periegetic or descriptive part, he had enough with his own eyes, although he undoubtedly consulted other authors in some places. Pausanias is perhaps one of the ancient writers most subjected to criticism by modern scholars, especially Germans. His preference for monuments of the past has provided his detractors with the main arguments: he is accused of not having seen or seen very little of what he describes, contenting himself with copying earlier writers, especially Polemon of Troy (2nd century BC).
Pausanias seems to have gathered most of his topographical knowledge from his own travels, but he also undoubtedly used the works of his predecessors in some places. On the other hand, his historical information is quite reliable and generally derived from good sources, although there are authors, as we have seen, who differ in this opinion.
