PAUSANIAS, Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., was probably a native of Lydia, and was possibly born at Magnesia ad Sipylum ; he was certainly interested in Pergamum and 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 pyramids and had heard the music of the vocal Memnon, while at the temple of Ammon he had been shown the hymn once sent to that shrine by Pindar. He had taken note of the fortifications of Rhodes and Byzantium, had visited Thessaly, and had gazed on the rivulet of "blue water" beside the pass of Thermopylae. In Macedonia he had almost certainly viewed the traditional tomb of Orpheus, while in Epirus he was familiar with the oracular oak of Dodona, and with the streams of Acheron and Cocytus. Crossing over to Italy, he had seen something of the cities of Campania, and of the wonders of Rome.
His Description of Greece TP/3 `EXX6.6os), takes the form of a tour in the Peloponnesus and in part of northern Greece. It is divided into ten books : (i.) Attica and Megara ; (ii.) Argolis, including Mycenae, Tiryns and Epidaurus; (iii.) Laconia; (iv.) Messenia; (v.) and (vi.) Elis, including Olympia; (vii.) Achaea ; (viii.) Arcadia; (ix.) Boeotia, and (x.) Phocis, including Delphi.
Book i. was written after Herodes Atticus had built the Athe nian Stadium (A.D. C. 143), but before he had built the Odeum (c. 160-161). This book was probably published some years before the rest. The statement in book v. (I, 2), that 217 years had elapsed since the restoration of Corinth (44 B.c.), shows that Pausanias was engaged on his account of Elis in A.D. 174, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. He repeatedly refers to buildings erected by Hadrian, who died in A.D. 138. He had lived in that emperor's time. He mentions the wars of Antoninus Pius against the Moors, and of Marcus Aurelius (in and after A.D. i66) against the Germans (viii. 43). The latest event recorded is the incursion of the robber-horde of the Costobocs (A.D. c. 176; x. 34, 5).
The work has no formal preface or conclusion. It suddenly begins with the promontory of Sunium, and it ends abruptly with an anecdote of a blind man of Naupactus. The author's general aim may be inferred from his saying at the close of his account of Athens and Attica : "Such (in my opinion) are the most famous of the Athenian traditions and sights; from the mass of materials I have aimed from the outset at selecting the really notable" (i. 39, 3). It is possibly in the hope of giving variety and interest to the topographical details of Athens that the author intersperses them with lengthy historical disquisitions ; but the result is that the modern reader is tempted to omit the "history" and to hasten on to the "topography," on which the author is now a primary authority. In the subsequent books he introduces two improve ments. His account of each important city begins with a sketch of its history; and, in his subsequent descriptions, he adopts a strictly topographical order. He takes the nearest road from the frontier to the capital; he there makes for the central point, e.g., the market-place, and describes in succession the several streets radiating from that centre. Similarly, in the surrounding district, he follows the principal roads in succession, returning to the capital in each case, until, at the end of the last road, he crosses the frontier for the next district.
In the later books he gives a few glimpses into the daily life of the inhabitants, ceremonial rites and superstitious customs. He frequently introduces narratives from history and of legend and folk-lore; and it is only rarely that he allows us to see something of the scenery. But, happily, 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. He tells us that "there is no fairer river than the Ladon," "no reeds grow so tall as those in the Boeotian Asopus," and the rain that deluges the fallow plain of Mantineia vanishes into a chasm to rise again elsewhere. It is mainly in the last three books that he touches on the products of nature.