Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
an actual voyage because much of Pytheas’ information is unique for his
time and can be made to match up with actual conditions around the North
Sea. 24
During much of the archaic and classical periods access to the most
distant regions of Asia depended on good relations with the Persians, and
reports about India in particular were transmitted by Greeks who were in
the service of the Great King. Around 500 BC Skylax of Karyanda was
commissioned by Dareios I to explore the Indus. He sailed down the river
and then continued westward along the coast until he reached the Red
Sea. The literary account of this journey described a world full of monstrous
animals and strange races which were not quite human. 25
More
miraculous stories about the east were provided by Ktesias, a Greek
physician at the Persian court around 400 BC. His Indike was supposedly
based on accounts of travellers, but Photios’ summary of this lost work
suggests that this text was a collection of marvellous phenomena, presenting
an India more miraculous and strange than that of Skylax. 26 In fact,
even where Ktesias could rely on first-hand information, in his Persian
History, he produced a highly unreliable account. 27 Since the Odyssey was
generally considered at least partly factual there was a venerable precedent
for introducing such fantastic elements in descriptions of distant
regions.
While some authors merely embellished their reports, others went
further and focused on purely imaginary regions and peoples. The earliest
‘traveller’s report’ of which we know any detail is the Arimaspeia of
Aristeas of Prokonnesos, an epic poem probably written in the early sixth
century BC. 28 This man had already attained mythical status in Herodotos’
time, and, as far as we can tell, his journey to the lands beyond the
Scythians included plenty of fantastic material, such as the one-eyed
Arimaspians, gold-guarding griffins and the mythical people of the Hyperboreans.
This fictional tradition of explorers’ tales was an inspiration for
later authors who wrote utopian fiction about fantastic journeys to islands
at the edges of the earth, beyond the confines of the known continents, or
even places outside the world, such as the underworld or the moon. 29
By the late classical period anyone who planned to write about their
experiences on a journey to remote places must have been very aware that
they would have to work hard to establish their trustworthiness. Military
campaigns into hitherto little known regions gave rise to a new kind of
travel account which was more akin to historiography than to the old
adventurers’ tales. While historical works often commented on movements
of people or gave descriptions of particular regions, they would not usually
provide a detailed account of a particular journey. Military campaigns into
unknown regions offered the opportunity to present what was essentially
an explorer’s tale as a historical account which could claim more credibility
than the tales of a lone seafarer, not least because there would be many
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