Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
Some sights are presented without any information about their location,
but at first Pausanias seems to follow a route, describing monuments in
relation to each other. The elevated place (chôrion hypsêlon) with the
altars has not been identified, since there are no notable hills within the
territory of the ancient city, but Pausanias’ usual mode of city descriptions
suggests that he is still inside the town. The point where he moves on to
the countryside is reached suddenly, but it is clearly marked by indicating
the road to Lakonia. This description provides only a very vague notion of
the layout of Tegea, and we get no sense of what the city looked like. 26
Pausanias’ mental site maps become far more structured and distinct
once their historical component is taken into account. The noteworthy
objects described at a site may not be well located in space, but usually
they are linked to a particular point in time. An object does not itself need
to date to the correct period to represent a specific aspect of the past: it is
usually enough if it evokes a relevant memory, as may a work of art that
is much later than the period in question but that depicts an important
character or aspect of the story. These chronological links are rarely
explicit and they may not always be immediately apparent to a modern
reader. Almost every monument comes with a story or at least a reference
to a prominent figure or event, which would allow an ancient pepaideumenos
to connect it with a particular generation or period. In addition,
Pausanias’ genealogies and historical accounts provide a chronological
framework which accommodates most of the events or characters he
mentions in his site descriptions. This combination of theôrêmata and
logoi, description and comments, is characteristic for the Periegesis, and
in order to understand the structure of Pausanias’ Greek landscape it is
important to consider them together, as the author intended. Monuments
or stories are not just fixed in the local topography: they are also assigned
their place in time. In the larger cities this produces a mental map with
historical layers which surface in different locations in the town or the
surrounding countryside wherever a place is in some way connected with
a particular period or story.
I return to Tegea to illustrate how Pausanias’ text reflects the historical
topography. The description starts with a typical historical introduction
which summarises a few highlights of the city’s past without attempting
a continuous narrative.
The Tegeans say that under Tegeates, son of Lykaon, only the region was
named after him, and the inhabitants lived in villages (dêmoi) … In the reign
of Apheidas a ninth deme, called Apheidantes, was added. Aleos was the
founder of the modern city. Apart from the events in which they participated
together with the Arkadians, which include the Trojan War, the Persian
Wars and the battle at Dipaia against the Spartans, and, apart from what
has already been mentioned, the Tegeans have the following famous deeds
of their own: in spite of his wounds Ankaios, the son of Lykourgos, stood up
to the Kalydonian Boar. … When the Herakleidai returned to the Pelopon-
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