Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

2. Pausanias: the Man and his Time
learning: he claims to have done research into areas that were central to
the literary canon. He decides against muscling into such a crowded field,
but not without asserting his intellectual prowess. The Periegesis offers a
wide range of information, some site-specific, some connected by free
association and presented in a logos. Discussions of general topics often
include examples from outside Greece, and sometimes they provide handy
lists of noteworthy facts. 66
Not all of these remarks are concerned with
scholarly analysis. As with sites and monuments, Pausanias is looking for
remarkable details, things worth talking about. There was a whole genre
of variae historiae (varied enquiries) which collected material from earlier
texts, particularly books that were not easily available, and arranged it in
some engaging way. 67 Some scholars have argued that the Periegesis is just
a particularly elaborate example of this genre, with fictitious site descriptions
serving as a framework. 68 Pausanias’ topographical accuracy shows
that this theory is preposterous, but the consistently important role of
informative digressions in his work deserves attention. Just as variae
historiae presumably found an interested audience, the additional comments
in the Periegesis were likely to be attractive to ‘sophisticated’
readers who wanted to expand their educational horizons and for whom
knowledge was a form of entertainment. 69
Many Second Sophistic texts, especially Philostratos’ Lives of the Sophists,
describe an intellectual network which included most of the major
cities around the eastern Mediterranean, and some eminent places in the
west. Pausanias grew up close to three major centres of Greek learning,
and he visited many others. He must at least have known a few star
sophists of his time, and would presumably have witnessed their performances.
70 Pausanias is, however, not a name dropper, and he mentions only
a few contemporaries. Apart from the Roman emperors, he refers to two
benefactors who paid for public buildings, namely Herodes Atticus and a
senator Antoninus (Sextus Iulius Antoninus Pythodorus). He also mentions
Hadrian’s favourite Antinoos, a Messenian notable, Claudius
Saethidas, and two contemporary Olympic victors. 71 It is also difficult to
say whether any of the intellectuals of the time knew Pausanias. There is
little evidence that the Periegesis was read in antiquity, 72 but this does not
say much because few Second Sophistic authors are mentioned in other
ancient texts. One reference in Aelian’s early third-century work Varia
Historia was dismissed by an early editor, seemingly without good reason.
73 Increased scholarly attention to the texts of the Second Sophistic has
led to some suggestions that other authors may also be drawing on
Pausanias, for example Philostratos, Longus, Lucian, Pollux and
Athenagoras. 74
None of these possible allusions to the Periegesis can be
identified for certain, but at least it is now accepted as a distinct possibility
that Pausanias’ work was recognised by other intellectuals of his own
time.
The world of Pausanias and of the Second Sophistic was shaped by the
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