Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

2. Pausanias: the Man and his Time
have impressed him most, and he mentions a number of sights in Ephesos,
most notably the famous Artemision. 34
A long excursus on Ionia in the
Achaian book leaves no doubt that Pausanias was proud of his native
western Asia Minor. For him Ionia has the best possible climate, unique
sanctuaries and various other noteworthy sights that are second only to
the marvels of mainland Greece. 35
The date of the Periegesis is relatively uncontroversial, and there is
enough evidence to determine Pausanias’ approximate lifetime. 36
References
to his own time, as far as they can be dated, seem to refer to a period
between AD 120 and 180, and he may have been born around AD 115. 37 A
number of clues in the Periegesis provide dates for specific passages. Book
V begins with an overview of all the peoples in the Peloponnese, from the
autochthonous Arkadians to the most recent additions:
The Corinthians of today are the most recent settlers in the Peloponnese, and
from the time when they received their land from the emperor it is two
hundred and seventeen years to my own day. 38 (Paus. 5.1.2)
Assuming that the Periegesis was intended to be more than mere contemporary
reportage, it seems scarcely useful to date a relatively well-known
event, namely the re-foundation of Corinth by Caesar in 44 BC, by relating
it to a point in time that a later reader would find impossible to determine
independently. This information, however, allows us to encounter
Pausanias at a specific point in time, namely in AD 174. He must have been
aware that he was allowing the reader to put a firm date to the Periegesis,
or rather to a particular point in the lengthy process of research and
writing. The reader is almost invited to imagine the author at work,
presumably in the process of composing the beginning of Book V, and
approaching the halfway point of the Periegesis. The link between the
beginnings of the Roman colony at Corinth and Pausanias’ own time
emphasises just how recently these ‘new’ Corinthians had become part of
the ancient Peloponnesian landscape, and, perhaps more significantly, it
firmly turns Pausanias’ activities into a chronological reference point at
the end of the long history of the Peloponnese.
By AD 174 Pausanias had already been working on the Periegesis for
some time; in fact, after some years of writing he found it necessary to
comment on one exceptional monument which had been built while his
work was in progress:
The Odeion [of Patrai] is in every way the most noteworthy in Greece, except,
of course, the one at Athens. It is superior in size and style, and was built by
Herodes, an Athenian, in memory of his dead wife. This Odeion is not
mentioned in my account of Attica because my Athenian book was finished
before Herodes began the building. 39 (Paus. 7.20.6)
‘Herodes, an Athenian’ seems a striking understatement for one of the
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