Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
ments, very forcefully. He has praise for courage, piety and patriotism, but
criticism is more common, and many individuals are censured for their
crimes, particularly those considered as corrupt, impious or guilty of
treason. 76 A failure to live up to Pausanias’ moral standards can lead to
harsh condemnation:
Philip [II] might be considered as having accomplished greater exploits than
any Macedonian king before or after him. But nobody in their right mind
would call him a good general, because more than any other man he always
trampled on sacred oaths, violated treaties and broke his word on every
occasion. 77 (Paus. 8.7.5)
In fact, it is very difficult to see how anyone in their right mind could not
call Philip II of Macedon a good general, but for Pausanias morally sound
behaviour counts more than the shrewd diplomacy and excellent tactics of
the Macedonian king. Divine retribution for Philip’s crimes is presented
as a decisive factor in the history of fourth century Macedonia:
The wrath of heaven was not long delayed, it came earlier than any we know
of. Philip was only forty-six years old when he fulfilled the oracle that Delphi
gave him when he enquired about the Persians: ‘the bull is crowned, its end
is near, and the sacrificer is present’. Not long afterwards it became clear
that the oracle did not refer to the Persians, but to Philip himself. 78 (Paus.
8.7.6)
This argument is then pursued further with a summary of the subsequent
fate of the Argead family, namely Alexander’s premature death and the
murder of all close family members. Pausanias’ closing comments return
to Philip’s original crimes:
If Philip had taken into account the fate of the Spartan Glaukos, and
remembered the verse ‘the family of the man who keeps his oaths will
prosper hereafter’ during each of his actions, then, it seems to me, some god
would not have so ruthlessly put an end to Alexander’s life and, at the same
time, to the heyday of Macedonia. 79 (Paus. 8.7.8)
Seen in this light, Philip’s qualities as a politician and general are indeed
insignificant, because the direct consequences of his perjury rapidly reversed
all advantages he gained during his lifetime. Pausanias’ whole
interpretation of Philip II and his activities is dominated by his moral
judgement and his view that serious crimes will be subject to divine
retribution. This allows him to create a causal link between a number of
crucial events that shaped the fate of the Hellenistic world.
The causes of historical events, though central to historiography, are
often not systematically explored in the Periegesis. Pivotal developments
are usually recorded as a fairly simple sequence of events, without further
comments about their connections with other aspects of the narrative.
88