Pausanias in Arcadia

A FEW WORDS ABOUT PAUSANIAS

Pausanias (143-176AD) was born in Lydia. He was a Greek traveler and geographer. He wrote “Periegisis Hellados, a “Description of Greece”, an invaluable guide to the ancient Greek world. The reputed anthropologist and classical scholar Sir James George Frazer (Glasgow 1854-Cambridge 1941) said about Pausanias: “without him the ruins of Greece would, for the most part, be a labyrinth without a clue, a riddle without an answer”. Before visiting Greece Pausanias had traveled widely to Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Macedonia, Epirus and parts of Italy.

His “Description” takes the form of a tour in Greece starting from Attica. It is divided into ten books; the first book seems to have been completed after 143AD, and before 161AD. In this work no event is mentioned after 176AD. His account of each important city begins with an outline of its history; the descriptive narration follows a topographical order. He gives a few glimpses into the daily life, ceremonial rites and superstitious customs of the inhabitants and frequently introduces legend and folklore.

His major interests were the works of art. Inspired by the ancient glories of Greece, Pausanias is most at home in describing the religious art and architecture of Olympia and Delphi. In Athens the pictures, portraits and inscriptions recording the laws of Solon fascinate him. On the Acropolis he is amazed by the great gold and ivory statue of Athena and outside the city, the monuments of famous men and the Athenian soldiers fallen in battle. The remains of the ancient structures in Greece have proved the exactness of his descriptions. The topographical part of his work shows his fondness for the wonders of nature: signs that make up an indication of the approach of an earthquake, he observes the tides, the icebound seas of the north, and the noonday sun, which at summer solstice casts no shadow at Syene Aswan, Egypt.

Pausanias when visiting Arcadia was strongly impressioned by the monuments and the local traditions and stories still surviving in the area. By this fact he studied extensively Arcadia and finally dedicated 54 chaptrers in his book "Arcadika". This description constitues a valuable resource of information and research about the ancient Arcadia till our days.

Arcadia

1. The part of Arcadia that lies next to the Argive land is occupied by Tegeans and Mantineans, who with the rest of the Arcadians inhabit the interior of the Peloponnesus. The first people within the peninsula are the Corinthians, living on the Isthmus, and their neighbors on the side sea-wards are the Epidaurians. Along Epidaurus, Troezen, and Nermion, come the Argolic Gulf and the coast of Argolis; next to Argolis come the vassals of Lacedaemon, and these border on Messenia, which comes down to the sea at Mothone, Pylus and Cyparissiae.

[2] On the side of Lechaeum the Corinthians are bounded by the Sicyonians, who dwell in the extreme part of Argolis on this side. After Sicyon come the Achaeans who live along the coast at the other end of the Peloponnesus, opposite the Echinadian islands, dwell the Eleans. The land of Elis, on the side of Olympia and the mouth of the Alpheius, borders on Messenia; on the side of Achaia it borders on the land of Dyme.

[3] These that I have mentioned extend to the sea, but the Arcadians are shut off from the sea on every side and dwell in the interior. Hence, when they went to Troy, so Homer says, they did not sail in their own ships, but in vessels lent by Agamemnon.

[4] The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land. It is natural to suppose that others accompanied Pelasgus, and that he was not by himself; for otherwise he would have been a king without any subjects to rule over. However, in stature and in prowess, in beauty and in wisdom, Pelasgus excelled his fellows, and for this reason, I think, he was chosen to be king by them. Asius the poet says of him:

The godlike Pelasgus on the wooded mountains
Black earth gave up, that the race of mortals might exist.

[5] Pelasgus on becoming king invented huts that humans should not shiver, or be soaked by rain, or oppressed by heat. Moreover; he it was who first thought of coats of sheep-skins, such as poor folk still wear in Euboea and Phocis. He too it was who checked the habit of eating green leaves, grasses, and roots always inedible and sometimes poisonous.

[6] But he introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak. Some people have followed this diet so closely since the time of Pelasgus that even the Pythian priestess, when she forbade the Lacedaemonians to touch the land of the Arcadians, uttered the following verses:

In Arcadia are many men who eat acorns,
Who will prevent you; though I do not grudge it you.

It is said that it was in the reign of Pelasgus that the land was called Pelasgia.

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