Chapter I: Preface

Of Pausanias personally we know very little, but that he lived during the Reign of the Antonines, and travelled all round Greece, and wrote his famous _Tour round Greece_, or _Description of Greece_, in 10 Books, describing what he had seen and heard. His chief merit is his showing to us the state of the works of art still remaining in his day in the Greek cities, which have since been swept away by the various invasions that have devastated that once happy land. “When Pausanias travelled through Greece, during the age of the Antonines, about 1690 years ago, he found every city teeming with life and refinement; every Temple a Museum of Art; and every spot hallowed by some tradition which contributed to its preservation. The ruthless destruction of these works of art, in subsequent ages, has reduced them to a small number; and the Traveller now pauses, with a melancholy interest, to reflect upon the objects described by Pausanias, but which no longer exist.”[1]

Pausanias’ _Description of Greece_ is also full of various information on many topics. It is for example a mine of Mythology. For its various matter it has been happily compared to a “County History.” There is often a quiet vein of humour in Pausanias, who seems to have been almost equally a believer in Providence and in Homer.

I have translated from _Schubart’s_ Text in the _Teubner_ Series, (1875), but have taken the liberty always, where the text seemed hopeless, to adopt a reading that seemed preferable from any other source. I have constantly had before me the valuable edition of _Siebelis_, (Lipsiæ, 1827), to whom I am much indebted, especially for his Illustrations, still veracity obliges me to state that occasionally he too gives one reason to remember the famous lines of a well-known Rector of Welwyn in the Eighteenth Century.

“_The_ commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the Sun.”

In the _Index_ it is hardly necessary to state that I owe much to
_Schubart_.

CAMBRIDGE,
_May, 1886_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] George Scharf, Esq., F.S.A. 1859. _Wordsworth’s Greece_, p. 1.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

BOOK I. ATTICA 1

II. CORINTH 90

III. LACONIA 168

IV. MESSENIA 228

V. ELIS 302

VI. ELIS. Part ii. 360

INDEX 414

PAUSANIAS.