Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
tance. Smaller cities needed to make an effort to attract benefactors to
ensure their survival. There were no longer wars between neighbouring
states, but a small community might still find itself, or part of its territory,
absorbed by a wealthier neighbour. 92
Many of these activities were conducted
through (in the widest sense) cultural activities. An illustrious
past, impressive ancient monuments and remarkable festivals were crucial
for a city’s self-presentation to the outside world. 93 The orators of the
period stressed these aspects when they praised a city in their speeches,
and a similar focus can be seen in monuments and inscriptions of the
Greek east of the Roman empire. 94 Relations between cities were cemented
by ‘discovering’ ancestral links, and cities welcomed research, or fiction
posing as research, to back up their claims. 95 Hadrian tapped into this
mode of ‘inter-state’ relations when he founded the Panhellenion, an
organisation of Greek cities which had to prove their Greekness based on
mythical links with mainland Greece. 96 Greek identity outside mainland
Greece was ultimately always in some way related to the old motherland,
either through ancient migration stories, for example in Ionia, or through
founding heroes. At the same time, many of the places in mainland Greece
were known to every educated Greek, because many are mentioned in the
most widely read texts, be it the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad or the
classical historians.
The information gathered in the Periegesis is therefore not merely
antiquarian. Details about the history, cults and local traditions of communities
were valuable commodities, especially in mainland Greece.
Pausanias’ wealthy and educated peers, members of the élite of their
cities, would have been well-versed in maintaining, celebrating, using and
perhaps even manipulating the cultural heritage of their own cities. The
wealthy élite had the education to interpret the local past and to link it to
widely known Greek traditions such as the epics or the Attic tragedies.
They were also responsible for maintaining and setting up new monuments,
and they paid for local festivals. In return for their efforts they had
most to gain if their community managed to attract the attention of people
in high places who might be of some assistance. Many of Pausanias’
informants in Greece were probably members of the local élite who were
themselves involved in the same activities. 97 In fact, if we take into account
the crucial importance of polis life and local culture for the Greeks, it
should come as no surprise that in all but the smallest places Pausanias
found someone willing to explain the most noteworthy features of their
city’s heritage. Greek culture viewed with the polis in mind is not uniform:
on the contrary, it is characterised by a great variety of cultural expression
in different cities, albeit within a common framework.
The Periegesis sets out to map Greece, and by so doing it (re-)constructs
Greekness like a jigsaw, as a big picture that is made up of many
small details which emphasise the variety and local individuality of Greek
city-states. It is clear from the text that this work involved a lot of
30