Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
Many modern visitors came to Greece already expecting to find a landscape
where much was lost, and the ancient authors provided a template
for their response. The decline, which was traditionally associated with
Roman rule, could be easily compared with the development of the region
under the Ottomans, only now the decline seemed even more pronounced,
since the Greeks themselves appeared to have forgotten their great heritage.
42 Pausanias plays a double role in this discourse between ancient and
modern: on the one hand, his work offered a detailed view of a glorious lost
world which could serve as a contrast to the sad present state of the
landscape, and on the other hand he himself was confronted with signs of
decline, so that his observations often seemed to parallel the experiences
of later travellers.
References to ruins, lost cities and missing artefacts are an integral part
of Pausanias’ project. After all, only a notion that traditions and physical
remains are likely to disappear can inspire such a colossal effort of
recording monuments and traditions. There needs to be a sense of distance
and loss that separates the past from the present, and references to
monuments that have disappeared or stories that have (almost) been
forgotten add to a sense of complex layers in the memorial landscape. 43
Pausanias demonstrates a nuanced attitude to the lost heritage of Greece,
and it is important not to overemphasise his sense of separation from a
lost past. The Periegesis has often been called a nostalgic text which
focuses on the decline of Greek culture under Roman rule, and, as so often
in Pausanias, there is no lack of passages to support this impression. 44 This
is, however, not the whole picture: Pausanias does not present an image
of a deserted Greece; on the contrary, the emphasis is on monuments that
are intact, traditions that are remembered and rituals that are still carried
out faithfully. In fact, the Periegesis often offers a valuable alternative to
ancient authors who suggest that Greece was almost completely deserted
and in ruins. 45
It was probably easy to dismiss the whole region from a
distance, or with the knowledge of a few poignant places. A ruin one
encounters in the landscape is, however, always ambiguous: it is a testimony
to the loss of a site, but at the same time it serves as a powerful
memorial which keeps the ancient meaning of a place from being completely
forgotten. Pausanias reacts to this ambiguity by adopting different
modes of dealing with abandoned sites. Many ruins are just mentioned
matter-of-factly to fill gaps in the memorial landscape. Where he decides
to comment on the fact that a site is ruined Pausanias does sometimes
reflect on the loss of a monument or site, but in other cases he emphasises
the fact that some remains still survived in his own time, and he clearly
appreciates the value of unimpressive remains in comparison to those sad
places where he could not even discover ruins. 46
Nostalgia is sometimes implicit in the Periegesis, particularly when
great events in the past are juxtaposed with modest contemporary remains.
There are a few instances where Pausanias comments on the fact
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