Pausanias Periegesis, unlike a Baedeker guide, stops for a brief excursus on a point of ancient ritual or to tell an apposite myth, in a genre that would not become popular again until the early 19th century. In the topographical part of his work, Pausanias is fond of digressions on the wonders of nature, the signs that herald the approach of an earthquake, the phenomena of the tides, the ice-bound seas of the north, and the noonday sun which at the summer solstice casts no shadow at Syene (Aswan). While he never doubts the existence of the gods and heroes, he sometimes criticizes the myths and legends relating to them. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned. They bear the impression of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance. When he quotes a book at second hand he takes pains to say so. The work left faint traces in the known Greek corpus. It was not read, Habicht relates— there is not a single mention of the author, not a single quotation from it, not a whisper before Stephanus Byzantius in the sixth century, and only two or three references to it throughout the Middle Ages.[5] We came perilously close to losing it altogether, in fact: the only manuscripts of Pausanias are three 15th-century copies, full of errors and lacunae, which all appear to depend on a single manuscript that survived to be copied. Niccolò Niccoli had this archetype in Florence in 1418; at his death in 1437 it went to the library of San Marco, Florence, then disappeared after 1500.[6] Until 20th century archaeologists found that Pausanias was a reliable guide to the sites they were excavating,[7] Pausanias was largely dismissed by 19th- and early 20th century classicists of a purely literary bent, who followed the authoritative Wilamowitz in discrediting him, as a purveyor of literature quoted at second-hand, who, it was suggested, had not actually visited most of the places he described. Habicht 1985 describes an episode in which Wilamowitz was led astray by misreading Pausanias, in front of an august party of travellers, in 1873, and attributes to it Wilamowitz lifelong antipathy and distrust of Pausanias. The experience of a century of archaeologists has fully vindicated him.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 07:21:03 +0000
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