Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
fiction, where it could set the mood of the story or reflect the emotional
state of a character.
Ancient Greek literature did not develop such a strong tradition of
comprehensive, evocative landscape descriptions, although some writers
did discuss the scenery. Travel accounts often dealt with exotic, distant
regions, and they tend to focus on the unusual or marvellous without
attempting to give a clear general impression of the surroundings. Familiar
Mediterranean landscapes offered more scope for writers to pay
attention to particular aspects and to tailor their description to suit the
purpose of the text. The Odyssey introduces Ithaka from three different
perspectives: the narrator sees the island from the point of view of the
approaching ship, describing the harbour and its surroundings and the
cave where the Phaiakians land to leave the sleeping Odysseus. When the
hero wakes up he does not recognise his homeland, and he perceives a
rather inhospitable natural landscape, with high mountains and forests,
and a coast full of sheltered bays. Finally, when Athena reveals to him that
he has finally reached his home she evokes the cultivated landscape by
praising its suitability for agriculture and pasture. 13 Beginning with the
Homeric epics, Greek poets drew material for similes from specific aspects
of Mediterranean landscapes, which are often observed in loving detail. In
Hellenistic bucolic poetry such references are used systematically to suggest
a pastoral setting, and at times they evoke a specific landscape, such
as Theokritos’ Sicily. 14
Dio Chrysostom frames part of his discussion on kingship with a story
about his wanderings in the Peloponnese. Dio does not intend to inform
his audience about Greece, but he needs a suitable context for a mythical
story which forms part of his argument.
On my way from Heraia to Pisa I walked along the Alpheios following the
road for a while, and then I got into woodland and rough terrain with paths
leading to flocks and herds, but I met no-one and could not ask the way. …
I saw a clump of oaks on a hill which looked like a sacred grove and I made
my way there, hoping that from there I might discover some road or house.
I found stones roughly set together, hanging hides of animals that had been
sacrificed and some clubs and staffs, all apparently dedications of herdsmen.
15 (Dio Chrysostom 1.52-3)
This description of a Greek landscape could not be much more different
from Pausanias’ perspective. The setting is somewhere on the boundary
between Arkadia and Elis, but apart from the place names which locate
Dio’s adventure in the western Peloponnese there is no indication of
anything that would be specific to these particular places. The description
of the cult place consists of pastoral stereotypes, and it seems to owe more
to bucolic poetry than to reality.
In terms of genre and attention to local detail, Herakleides Kritikos’
Hellenistic description of Attica and Boiotia 16 offers the closest comparison
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