Pausanias
- Son of Cleombrotus, the leader of the Spartans in the battle of Plataea, Cic. Off. 1, 22, 76; Nep. Vit. Paus. 1 sqq.—
- II A prince of Pherae, Liv. 36, 9.—
- III A praetor of the Epirotes, Liv. 32, 10.—
- IV A Macedonian, the murderer of Philip, Just. 9, 6, 4; 7, 1 al.
- 1. Spartaanse legeraanvoerder, overwinnaar in de slag bij Plataeae in 479 v. Chr.;
- 2. moordenaar v. Philippus II v. Macedonië (336 v. Chr.).
(Παυσανίας). (1) A Spartan of the Agid branch of the royal family, the son of Cleombrotus and nephew of Leonidas. Several writers incorrectly call him king; but he only succeeded his father Cleombrotus in the guardianship of his cousin Plistarchus, the son of Leonidas, for whom he exercised the functions of royalty from B.C. 479 to the period of his death. In 479, when the Athenians called upon the Lacedaemonians for aid against the Persians, the Spartans sent a body of 5000 Spartans, each attended by seven Helots, under the command of Pausanias. At the Isthmus, Pausanias was joined by the other Peloponnesian allies, and at Eleusis by the Athenians when he took command of the united armies, the other Greek generals forming his council. The allied forces numbered 110,000 men. Near Plataeae in Boeotia Pausanias defeated the Persians under Mardonius and thus assured the independence of Greece. For his own reward, Pausanias received one tenth of the spoils (Herod.ix. 10-85; Diod.xi. 29-33).
In the year 477 the Greeks sent out a fleet under Pausanias to drive the Persians from the islands. He attacked Cyprus and subdued the greater part, and then sailed to Byzantium, which he succeeded in taking. After this victory Pausanias began to aim at personal dominion for himself rather than success for his country, being evidently dazzled by his unbroken and brilliant successes. His ambition seems to have looked for a tyranny over the whole of Greece, and to have conceived the plan of securing the aid of the Persian king in the accomplishment of this design. Among the prisoners taken at Byzantium were some Persians connected with the royal family. These he sent to the king, with a letter, in which he offered to bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under his power, and proposed to marry his daughter. His offers were gladly accepted, and whatever amount of troops and money he required for accomplishing his designs. Pausanias now set no bounds to his arrogant and domineering temper. The allies were so disgusted by his conduct that they all, except the Peloponnesians and Aeginetans, voluntarily offered to transfer to the Athenians that pre-eminence of rank which Sparta had hitherto enjoyed. In this way the Athenian confederacy first took its rise. Reports of the conduct and designs of Pausanias reached Sparta, and he was recalled and put upon his trial; but the evidence respecting his meditated treachery was not yet thought sufficiently strong. Shortly afterwards he returned to Byzantium, without the orders of the ephors, and renewed his treasonable intrigues. He was again recalled to Sparta, was again put on his trial, and again acquitted. But even after this second escape he still continued to carry on his intrigues with Persia. At length a man, who was charged with a letter to Persia, having his suspicions awakened by noticing that none of those sent previously on similar errands had returned, counterfeited the seal of Pausanias and opened the letter, in which he found directions for his own death. He carried the letter to the ephors, who prepared to arrest Pausanias; but he took refuge in the temple of Athené Chalcioecus. The ephors stripped off the roof of the temple and built up the door; the aged mother of Pausanias is said to have been among the first who laid a stone for this purpose. When he was on the point of expiring, the ephors took him out lest his death should pollute the sanctuary. He died as soon as he got outside, B.C. 470. He left three sons behind him, Plistoanax, afterwards king, Cleomenes, and Aristocles. See Bulwer's unfinished novel, Pausanias the Spartan.
(2) Son of Plistoanax, and grandson of the preceding, was king of Sparta from B.C. 408 to 394. In 403 he was sent with an army into Attica, and secretly favoured the cause of Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles, in order to counteract the plans of Lysander. In 395 Pausanias was sent with an army against the Thebans; but in consequence of the death of Lysander, who was slain under the walls of Haliartus, on the day before Pausanias reached the spot, the king agreed to withdraw his forces from Boeotia. On his return to Sparta he was impeached, and seeing that a fair trial was not to be hoped for, went into voluntary exile, and was condemned to death. He was living at Tegea in 385, when Mantinea was besieged by his son Agesipolis, who succeeded him on the throne.
(3) King of Macedonia, the son and successor of Aeropus. He was assassinated in the year of his accession by Amyntas II., 394.
(4) A pretender to the throne of Macedonia, made his appearance in 367, after Alexander II. had been assassinated by Ptolemaeus. Eurydicé, the mother of Alexander, sent to request the aid of the Athenian general, Iphicrates, who expelled Pausanias from the kingdom.
(5) A Macedonian youth of distinguished family, from the province of Orestis. Having been shamefully treated by Attalus, he complained of the outrage to Philip; but as Philip took no notice of his complaints, he directed his vengeance against the king himself. He shortly afterwards murdered Philip at the festival held at Aegae, 336, but was slain on the spot by some officers of the king's guard. Suspicion rested on Olympias and Alexander of having been privy to the deed; but with regard to Alexander, at any rate, the suspicion is probably totally unfounded. There is a story that Pausanias, while meditating revenge, having asked the sophist Hermocrates which was the shortest way to fame, the latter replied, that it was by killing the man who had performed the greatest achievements.
(6) A celebrated Greek traveller and geographer, a native of Lydia. He explored Greece, Macedonia, Asia, and Africa; and then, in the second half of the second century A.D., settled in Rome, where he composed a Periegesis (Περιήγησις) or Itinerary of Greece in ten books. Book I. includes Attica and Megaris; II., Corinth with Sicyon, Phlius, Argolis, Aegina, and the other neighbouring islands; III., Laconia; IV., Messenia; V., VI., Elis and Olympia; VII., Achaea; VIII., Arcadia; IX., Boeotia; X. , Phocis and Locris. The work is founded on notes, taken on the spot, from his own observation and inquiry from the natives of the country, on the subject of the religious cults and the monuments of art and architecture. Together with these there are topographical and historical notices, in working up which Pausanias took into consideration the accounts of other authors, especially of Polemon (A.D. 150), poets as well as prose writers. Although his account is not without numerous inaccuracies, omissions, and mistakes, it is yet of inestimable value for our knowledge of ancient Greece, especially with regard to its mythology, folk-lore, and religious cults, but above all for the history of Greek art. The composition of his work, especially in the earlier books, shows little skill in plan, execution, or style, and, while accurate, shows that he did not grasp the distinction between legend and history.
The best editions of Pausanias are those of Siebelis, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1822-28); and Schubart and Walz, 3 vols. (1838-40; reprint by Teubner, Leipzig, 1862 and 1881). English translations by Taylor (1793-94); Shilleto (2 vols. 1886). See Kalkmann, Pausanias der Perieget (Berlin, 1886); Gurlitt, Pausanias (Gratz, 1890); and Miss Verrall's Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens (1890).
Pausanias composed an extensive guide book of Greece, relating in great (though occasionally inconsistent) detail what he saw as he toured the mainland Greek homeland. As in any guide book, geographical and topographical order organizes his work, for he describes things as they appear to the traveller. The sites and monuments, however, are not merely archaeological or artistic curiosities but focal points which bind together the culture and history of Greece. A tour through Athens, for example, leads to extended discussions of Athenian history and customs. Pausanias’ Guide to Greecegives us an unparalleled overview of how Greece appeared to a sensitive, educated and indefatigable observer in the second century A.D. The work is divided into ten books, which cover the following regions:
Book 1 Athens, Attica, Megara and the Megarid
Book 2 Land of Corinth, the Argolid, and the island of Aigina
Book 3 Laconia
Book 4 Messenia
Book 5 Elis (1)
Book 6 Elis (2)
Book 7 Achaia
Book 8 Arcadia
Book 9 Boeotia
Book 10 Phocis (with Delphi) and sections of Locris
Pausanias does not describe the whole of the Greek world. He does not cover Asia Minor, South Italy or Sicily, much less the settlements in the Black Sea, Cyprus or the Western Mediterranean. He leaves out everything that is not on the Greek mainland, describing Aegina but none of the other numerous Greek islands. He does not even cover all of mainland Greece proper, leaving out sections of Lokris, the whole of Aitolia, Akarnania, Epeiros and Thessaly. As one authority puts it ([Habicht, 1985], 5): “To judge from Pausanias’ work, the northern boundary of Greece would run from Thermopylai to Naupaktos.”
Clearly, Pausanias planned, at least at the beginning, to cover more. He cuts off a digression in book 1 by noting “I must move on in my discussion, since I am going to describe all the circumstances of the Greeks” (Paus. 1.26.4: δεῖ δέ με ἀφικέσθαι τοῦ λόγου πρόσω, πάντα ὁμοίως ἐπεξιόντα τὰ Ἑλληνικά). He seems to have changed his mind during his lengthy work. Although the final book remains apparently unfinished (Pausanias does not seem to fulfill at Paus. 10.38.1the promise to describe Lokris which he makes at Paus. 9.23.7), more than 100 passages in Pausanias refer to other portions of the text and each of these links matches another passage. Two thirds of these links point forwards in the text, and there are no references to sections of Pausanias that lie outside the range of our ten books. Pausanias, as he wrote, came to envision his Guide to Greecepretty much as we have it.
LifeBirth of Pausanias in Magnesia near Mount Sipylos115A.D.
Death of Pausanias c. 180 A.D.
We have no firm external evidence of who Pausanias was or where he came from, but he mentions Mount Sipylos and its physical environs ten times and with such precision that he most probably grew up in that region (Paus. 1.21.3, Paus. 2.22.3, Paus. 3.22.4, Paus. 6.22.1, Paus. 7.24.13, Paus. 7.27.12, Paus. 8.2.7, Paus. 8.17.3, Paus. 8.38.10, Paus. 10.4.6). Pausanias clearly had considerable schooling and must, it is argued, have lived near a significant urban site. The most substantial city in that vicinity would be Magnesia, roughly half-way between Sardis and the sea ([Habicht, 1985] 13-15). Pausanias would thus have grown up as part of the Greek world but separated from the mainland Greek homeland which he describes.
At Paus. 8.9.7, Pausanias states that he never saw Antinous, the favorite of the Emperor Hadrian, but only paintings and statues. Pausanias thus seems to imply that he would have been old enough to have seen and remembered Antinous. Since Antinous drowned in Egypt on October 30, 130 A.D., scholars have generally dated Pausanias’ birth to c. 115 A.D.
At Paus. 5.1.2, Pausanias refers to an event which took place 217 years after Julius Caesar refounded Corinth. Since Corinth was refounded in 44 B.C., the date in Paus. 5.1.2must be 174 A.D. A Roman victory over Germans and Sarmatians cited at Paus. 8.43.6can be dated to late summer or fall 175. On the other hand, Pausanias mentions every reigning emperor from 98 A.D. onwards, and Marcus Aurelius is the last emperor whom he mentions. Since Aurelius died in 180 A.D., this suggests that Pausanias had stopped work on his history before that time.
If he was still writing after 175, he had been working for many years. At Paus. 7.20.6, he says that the music hall at Patras was the finest in Greece, except for the one in Athens, which Herodes Atticus built for his late wife. Pausanias had thus finished work on Book 1 when Herodes’ wife Regilla died in 160 or 161 A.D. We may guess that he had already begun work in 155 A.D., and this would present us with a picture of Pausanias at work over a greater than twenty-year period.
TravelsPausanias' Guide to Greecedraws upon his own extensive travels throughout Greece, but he visited many areas of the Greco-Roman world besides. Like Herodotus, Pausanias travelled extensively outside the traditional Greek world. He had been to Syria (Paus. 5.7.4, Paus. 4.35.9, 11, to Jerusalem (Paus. 8.16.5) and to Antioch (e.g., Paus. 8.33.3), to the Pyramids (Paus. 9.36.5) and to Thebes in Egypt (Paus. 1.42.3) and across the desert to Ammon (Paus. 9.16.1). He had been at least as far north as Byzantium (Paus. 4.31.5), and in the west had travelled both to the cities of Campania (Paus. 5.12.3, Paus. 4.35.12, Paus. 8.7.3) and to Rome itself (Paus. 5.12.6, Paus. 10.5.11, Paus. 5.12.6, Paus. 8.46.4, Paus. 8.46.5, Paus. 4.35.10).
For Pausanias’ life, see [Habicht 1985] 1-18, and [Frazer 1913] vol. 1, xiii-xxii.
Frazer, J. G. Pausanias' Description of Greece: Translated with a commentary by J. G. Frazer. 6 vols. New York: Biblio and Tannen, 1913. Habicht, Christian. Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece. Sather Classical Lectures. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985. 50: xv+205. Pausanias. Guide to Greece, translated and with an introduction. Penguin Classics. 2 vols. New York: Penguin, 1979. Gregory Crane- (the author), his country: Paus. 5.13.7
- his date: Paus. 5.1.2
- intends to describe all Greece: Paus. 1.26.4
- plan of his work: Paus. 1.39.3, Paus. 3.11.1
- does not accept certain stories about the gods: Paus. 2.17.4
- his view of Greek myths: Paus. 8.8.3
- his scepticism as to Hades: Paus. 3.25.5
- deterred by dream from describing the Eleusinium at Athens: Paus. 1.14.3and sanctuary at Eleusis: Paus. 1.38.7
- in Campania: Paus. 5.12.3
- visits Rome: Paus. 9.21.1
- did not see Antinous in life: Paus. 8.9.7
- his description of Athens finished before Herodes built his Music Hall at Athens: Paus. 7.20.6
- Greece invaded by Costobocs in his time: Paus. 10.34.5
- a sculptor: Paus. 10.9.6
- said to have murdered Harpalus: Paus. 2.33.4
- Paus. 3.4.9, Paus. 8.52.2
- son of Cleombrotus and grandson of Anaxandrides king of Sparta: Hdt. 9.10
- guardian of Plistarchus: Paus. 3.4.9
- mentioned repeatedly as leader of the Greeks against Mardonius: Hdt. 9.10-82
- commands Greeks at battle of Plataea: Paus. 1.13.4, Paus. 3.4.9, Paus. 3.14.1, Paus. 3.17.7, Paus. 8.52.2
- (personal allusions) his proposal to the Athenians for a rearrangement of the battle line: Hdt. 9.46
- special appeal to Athenians: Hdt. 9.60
- refuses to mutilate corpse of Mardonius: Paus. 3.4.10
- slays a Byzantine maiden Cleonice: Paus. 3.17.7-9
- consults wizards at Phigalia: Paus. 3.17.9
- removes bones of Leonidas from Thermopylae: Paus. 3.14.1
- instance of his generosity and courtesy:
- his courteous treatment of a Coan lady: Hdt. 9.76, Hdt. 9.79, Paus. 3.4.9ff.
- bronze caldron dedicated by him on the Bosporus: Hdt. 4.81
- his pride and ambition after the Persian war: Hdt. 5.32, Hdt. 8.3
- father of Plistoanax: Paus. 1.13.4
- his tomb: Paus. 3.14.1
- games held at his tomb: Paus. 3.14.1
- two statues of him at Sparta: Paus. 3.17.7
- king of Sparta: Paus. 1.13.4
- tried for his conduct in Attica and acquitted: Paus. 3.5.1ff.
- concludes a truce with Thebans: Paus. 3.5.5
- takes sanctuary in temple of Athena Alea at Tegea: Paus. 3.5.6