Who was Pausanias, and what is his Description of Greece?

Pausanias

Pausanias was a Greek traveller of the second century AD. His Description of Greece, in ten books, records what stood at hundreds of sites in Attica, the Peloponnese and central Greece. Books 5 and 6 cover Olympia, and most of Book 10 covers Delphi. He dates his work only by accident. Since excavation began at both sites in the nineteenth century, archaeologists have used him as a guide, confirming some of his claims but not others.

In short

Pausanias gives no date for his work. In Achaia, at Patrae, he says his account of Athens was already finished before the Athenian Herodes Atticus built a music hall there in memory of his wife (7.20.6). This shows the books were completed in stages.
Books 5 and 6 of Pausanias’s Description of Greece cover only Olympia. Book 10 gives most of its length to Delphi, including seven chapters on paintings by Polygnotus that survive nowhere else.
Pausanias reports that a man is said to change into a wolf at the sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus. He then adds that people drawn to marvels tend to add to them and “ruin truth by mixing it with falsehood” (8.2.6-8.2.7).
Of the 15 treasury buildings Pausanias names at Olympia, only five have been securely identified among the foundations excavators have found there.
Excavators at Delphi have tested the remains against Pausanias’s description of the sanctuary since 1892, and the comparison is still unfinished.

A traveller’s guide in ten books

Pausanias was a Greek traveller of the second century AD. He wrote the Description of Greece, a guide in ten books to what stood at hundreds of sites: temples, statues, tombs, and the customs and stories attached to them.

He comes to Greece from the sea. He begins where Cape Sounion juts out from Attica, the region around Athens, and only then names a temple. His books then move region by region through Attica, Corinth, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaia, Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis and Ozolian Locri. Olympia takes up both books on Elis. Delphi fills most of the tenth.

The route is planned but not complete. It covers Attica, the Peloponnese and central Greece. Aetolia and the islands stay outside it.

A later building dates an earlier book

Pausanias gives no date for his work. His clearest clue to its timing comes by accident, in Book 7. At Patrae, he explains that he left a music hall out of his book on Attica. That account was already finished before Herodes Atticus began the building.

The building is the Athenian Odeon, or music hall, which Herodes Atticus raised in memory of his wife. So Pausanias had closed Book 1 before it went up. He then went on travelling and writing until at least Book 7, which shows that the books were finished in stages.

What he chose to record

He chooses on purpose. Temples, statues, tombs, and the customs and stories attached to them fill the books. Buildings put up by Rome, or paid for with Roman money, he passes over in silence, with one clear exception.

The exception is the Roman emperor Hadrian. Pausanias credits him by name for the temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens (1.18.6). Among the other buildings the emperor gave the city, he also credits him with “a hundred pillars of Phrygian marble” (1.18.9). Pausanias shows this favour to no other emperor. Whether he meant it or not, the result is a description of Greece in which Rome has left less of a mark than it really had.

A story he does not quite believe

When a tale is hard to believe, Pausanias reports it without fully accepting or rejecting it. In Arcadia he writes: “It is said, for instance, that ever since the time of Lycaon a man has changed into a wolf at the sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus” (8.2.6). He sets this beside a claim that Niobe still weeps on Mount Sipylus. Then he states his own rule for both: “Those who like to listen to the miraculous are themselves apt to add to the marvel, and so they ruin truth by mixing it with falsehood” (8.2.7).

A few lines earlier, he wrote the opposite about men said to have been turned into gods in an earlier age: “I for my part believe this story” (8.2.4). The two judgements sit in the same chapter. Neither is a rule he applies without thinking.

What the digging found at Delphi

At Delphi, the great excavation of the sanctuary, or holy site, ran from 1892 to 1902, and digging has gone on since. The excavators work by setting the remains in the ground against the description of the sanctuary that Pausanias gave in the second century AD. That comparison is still unfinished.

Seven of his chapters in Book 10 describe paintings by Polygnotus. They once hung in the Lesche of the Cnidians, beyond the spring Cassotis (10.25.1). The paintings have not survived in any form, so his description is the only full record of them that exists.

What the digging found at Olympia

Books 5 and 6 take the reader room by room around the Altis at Olympia. Excavation began there in 1875. Pausanias names the sanctuary’s treasury buildings (6.19.1). The ground has backed some of his claims more than others. Of the 15 treasuries, only five have been securely identified among the foundations the excavators have found.

He also describes at length the gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus, signed “Pheidias, son of Charmides, an Athenian, made me” (5.10.2). Nothing of it survives beyond its image on coins of Elis.

Places to visit

Delphi

Cultural Sites

Pausanias gives most of Book 10 to Delphi, including seven chapters on paintings by Polygnotus that once hung in the Lesche of the Cnidians, beyond the spring Cassotis (10.25.1). The paintings have not survived in any form, so his description is the only full record of them. Excavation has tested the sanctuary against his account since 1892.
Delphi
Olympia

Peloponnese

Books 5 and 6 cover only Olympia, room by room around the Altis. Excavation, begun there in 1875, has matched some of what Pausanias listed and left the rest unconfirmed: of the 15 treasuries he names (6.19.1), only five are securely identified, and of the gold-and-ivory Zeus by Pheidias he describes at length (5.10.2), nothing survives beyond its image on coins of Elis.
Olympia