Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
of scholarly attention to the work itself, however, presents a rather mixed
picture, reflecting the preferences and habits of the different disciplines
concerned with the ancient world. From the seventeenth century onwards
visitors to Greece found Pausanias’ work an excellent resource for the
reconstruction of the country’s ancient topography. 44 Its usefulness for this
purpose was easy to recognise, and by the early nineteenth century, when
the movement for the liberation of Greece inspired many travellers from
western Europe to visit Greece, Pausanias’ Periegesis not only served as a
travel guide but it was also used systematically to discover and identify
ancient remains. 45 After the foundation of the Greek state in 1821 more
detailed studies of routes and sites only increased the trust in Pausanias’
accuracy, especially once the excavations of major sites such as Olympia,
Delphi or Mycenae were under way. 46
Numismatics, epigraphy and the
study of ancient art were also developing rapidly and provided further
independent ancient evidence that could confirm Pausanias’ account,
sometimes even in cases where it seems difficult to believe him. 47
For
scholars who used the Periegesis in the field, the value of his work was
rarely in question, and discrepancies between the ancient report and the
results of modern research were often just seen as a matter of discovering
the correct interpretation of the relevant passages. 48
By the end of the
nineteenth century research had progressed so far that an overview was
needed, and two multi-volume commentaries appeared within a few years
of each other: Frazer’s in English, and Hitzig and Blümner’s in German. 49
Literary scholars were less willing to acknowledge the quality of the
Periegesis. The work belonged to a group of texts that were seen as the
output of a decadent Greek world under Roman rule which were not on a
par with the great works of the heyday of classical Athens. Even among
those late ‘inferior’ texts Pausanias was seen as second-rate, because he
uses a style that is widely perceived as awkward. The Periegesis also failed
to gain the respect of historians, because it contains much problematic
historical information that seems to contradict the respected classical
historiographers. 50 At the same time, however, the work was an invaluable
source for Greek mythology and religion that could hardly be discarded.
The extreme response to this dilemma was pioneered by Wilamowitz and
elaborated by some of his pupils, who suggested that Pausanias had not,
in fact, recorded his own observations, but that he had compiled his work
from earlier literary sources. 51 This idea was never universally accepted,
and prompted contradiction even among contemporaries. Ultimately, the
prevailing opinion on Pausanias was that of a reliable reporter without
literary aspirations, or an author with literary aspirations but no talent to
match. These views were compatible with the low opinion of literary
scholars while at the same time allowing the assumption that the information
in the Periegesis could be used without much attention to its
author’s objectives and methods. 52 Even Frazer, a fervent advocate of the
Periegesis with a special interest in religious and mythological details,
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