Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History / Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

by James George Frazer

To come down to buildings of a later age, Pausanias tells us that the Music Hall at Patrae was the grandest in Greece except the one built by Herodes Atticus at Athens, which excelled it both in size and style. Here we are in the fortunate position of being able to compare for ourselves the two buildings which Pausanias ranks together as the finest of their kind in Greece, for both of them exist in comparatively good preservation to the present day. That the Music Hall of Herodes Atticus excels in size the one at Patrae, as Pausanias says it did, is obvious at a glance. The former is in fact a spacious theatre, the latter is a tiny one. But both, as appears from the remains, were originally cased with marble and probably presented a splendid appearance. The lions’ paws of white marble which adorn the seats in the Music Hall at Patrae, together with the mosaic pavement of black and white in the adjoining chamber, enable us to form some slight idea of the elegance of those appointments which excited the admiration of Pausanias.

Stadium
at Athens.

Lastly, our author observes that the stadium at Athens, built of white marble by Herodes Atticus, was “wonderful to see, though not so impressive to hear of,” and that the greater part of the Pentelic quarries had been exhausted in its construction. The latter statement is, of course, an exaggeration. Mount Pentelicus is made of white marble, and there is a good deal of it left to this day, though the great white blotches on its sides, visible even from the coast of Epidaurus, tell plainly where the quarrymen have been at work. But we may easily believe Pausanias that the stadium was a wonderful sight when tiers of white marble benches, glistening in the strong sunshine, rose steeply above each other all along both sides of the valley. For a valley it is still, and a valley lined with white marble it must have been in the days of Pausanias. Those who have seen the stadium since it was partially refitted with white marble benches for the games of 1896 can better picture to themselves what its aspect must have been when the benches were complete. Before the time of Herodes Atticus the spectators may have sat either on the earthen slopes, as at Olympia, or on benches of common stone, as at Epidaurus and Delphi.

On the whole, then, so far as we can judge from the existing monuments and the testimony of ancient writers, especially of Lucian, the artistic taste of Pausanias was sound and good, if somewhat austere.

Intrinsic
evidence of
Pausanias’s
truthfulness.

The manner in which he has described the monuments is plain and appropriate, entirely free from those vague rhetorical flourishes, literary graces, and affected prettinesses with which, for example, Philostratus tricks out his descriptions of pictures, and which have consequently left it a matter of dispute to this day whether the pictures he describes existed anywhere but in his own imagination. No one is ever likely seriously to enquire whether the temples and theatres, the statues and paintings described by Pausanias ever existed or not. His descriptions carry the imprint of reality on them to every mind that is capable of distinguishing between the true and the false; and even if they did not, their truthfulness would still be vouched for by their conformity with the remains of the monuments themselves. Proof of this confirmity might be adduced in great abundance. Here, however, we are concerned with that internal evidence of the author’s honesty and candour which the writings themselves supply. Evidence of this sort can never, indeed, amount to demonstration. Candour and honesty are not qualities that can be brought to the test of the senses; they cannot be weighed in a balance or seen under a microscope. A man who is neither candid nor honest himself will probably never sincerely believe in the existence of these qualities in others, and there is no means of convincing him. It is always open to him to find a sinister motive for the simplest act, a covert meaning under the plainest words. In the case of Pausanias the internal evidence of good faith seems amply sufficient to convince a fair-minded enquirer. It consists in the whole cast and tenour of his writings; in the naturalness and credibility of all that he affirms of his own knowledge, with the exception of two or three cases in which he seems to have been duped by mercenary or priestly trickery; it consists in the plainness and directness of the descriptions; in their freedom from any tinge of rhetoric or sophistry; in the modesty with which the author generally keeps himself in the background; and finally in occasional confessions of ignorance which only malignity could interpret as artifices resorted to for the purpose of supporting an assumed air of ingenuous simplicity. This last feature of the work it is desirable to illustrate by instances. The others, pervading as they do the whole book, hardly admit of exemplification.

His confessions
of
ignorance.

Repeatedly, then, Pausanias owns that he had not been present at certain festivals, and consequently had not seen certain images which were only exhibited on these occasions. Thus with regard to the very curious image of Eurynome, which would have especially interested him as an antiquary, he tells us that the sanctuary in which it stood was opened only on one day in the year, and that as he did not happen to arrive on that day he had not seen the image, and therefore could only describe it from hearsay. Similarly he says that he cannot describe the image of Artemis at Hyampolis because it was the custom to open the sanctuary only twice a year. He tells at second hand of a festival of Dionysus at Elis, in which empty kettles were said to be found miraculously filled with wine; but he informs us that he was not himself at Elis at the time of the festival, and from expressions which he uses in regard to the marvel we may infer that he had his doubts about it. No one presumably will dispute these statements of Pausanias and maintain that he arrived in time for those festivals and saw those images although he assures us that he did not. We are bound, therefore, in fairness to believe him when he tells us with regard to the sanctuary of Mother Dindymene at Thebes that “it is the custom to open the sanctuary on a single day each year, not more. I was fortunate enough to arrive on that very day, and I saw the image.” As other instances of his candour may be cited his acknowledgment that he had not witnessed the ceremonies performed at the tombs of Eteocles and Polynices at Thebes, nor beheld the secret object revered in the worship of Demeter at Hermion; that he could describe the sanctuary of Poseidon at Mantinea only from hearsay; that he had neither seen the walls of Babylon and Susa nor conversed with any one who had; that he never saw Antinous in life, though he had seen statues and paintings of him; and that he had not heard the trout sing like thrushes in the river Aroanius, though he tarried by the river until sunset, when they were said to sing loudest. These are the confessions of an honest man, inclined perhaps to credulity, but yet who will not deceive others by professing to have seen sights, whether marvellous or otherwise, which he has not seen. Again, when he quotes a book at second hand he is careful to tell us so. Thus, after citing some lines from the Atthis of Hegesinus, he goes on: “This poem of Hegesinus I have not read: it was lost before my time; but the verses are quoted as evidence by Callippus of Corinth in his history of Orchomenus, and I have profited by his information to do the same.” Again, after quoting a couple of verses of an Orchomenian poet Chersias, he adds. “The poetry of Chersias is now lost, but these verses also are quoted by Callippus in the same work of his on Orchomenus.” These statements, like the foregoing, will hardly be disputed even by the most sceptical. No one will be likely to insist that Pausanias read books which he tells us he did not. Therefore in fairness we are bound to believe him when he says that he did read certain other works, such as the memoirs of some obscure historians, a treatise on rhetoric purporting to be by Pittheus, the epics Eoeae and Naupactia, a poem attributed to Linus, verses of Erato, a poem on soothsaying which passed under the name of Hesiod, and the oracles of Euclus, Musaeus, and Bacis. If we take the word of Pausanias for what he tells us he did not see and did not read, we must take it also for what he tells us he did see and did read. At least if we are to accept as true all those statements of an author which tell against himself and to reject as false all those which tell in his favour, there is an end of even the pretence of fair and rational criticism.

Literary
style of
Pausanias.

The literary style of Pausanias is no exception to the rule that the style of a writer reflects the character of the man. Pausanias was neither a great man nor a great writer. He was an honest, laborious, plodding man of plain good sense, without either genius or imagination, and his style is a faithful mirror of his character. It is plain and unadorned, yet heavy and laboured, as if the writer had had to cast about for the proper words and then fit them painfully together like the pieces in a Chinese puzzle. There is a sense of strain and effort about it. The sentences are devoid of rhythm and harmony. They do not march, but hobble and shamble and shuffle along. At the end of one of them the reader is not let down easily by a graceful cadence, a dying fall; he is tripped up suddenly and left sprawling, till he can pull himself together, take breath, and grapple with the next. It is a loose, clumsy, ill-jointed, ill-compacted, rickety, ramshackle style, without ease or grace or elegance of any sort. Yet Pausanias had studied good models. He knew Thucydides and his writings abound with echoes of Herodotus. But a style that has less of the unruffled flow, the limpid clearness, the exquisite grace, the sweet simplicity of the Herodotean prose it might be hard to discover. The sound of the one is like the chiming of a silver bell; that of the other like the creaking of a corn-crake. With all its defects, however, the style of Pausanias is not careless and slovenly. The author bestrides his high horse; he bobs up and down and clumps about on it with great solemnity; it is not his fault if his Pegasus is a wooden hobby-horse instead of a winged charger.