Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/459

PAUSANIAS 437 promising them freedom and citizenship if they would join him ; but, with characteristic caution, the authorities declined to accept the evidence of a Helot against a Spartan, and Pausanias might, after all, have been acquitted if it had not been that a messenger to whom he entrusted a letter for Artabazus, the Persian satrap, opened it, and, finding in it a direction to put the bearer to death, carried it to the ephors. But not until they had contrived to over hear a conversation between Pausanias and his messenger were the ephors satisfied of his guilt ; and then they pro ceeded to arrest him. Foreseeing their intention, Pausanias took refuge in the temple of Athene of the Brazen House. The ephors took off the roof, blocked up the doors, and starved him. When on the point of death he was dragged out, that his corpse might not defile the sanctuary. This happened about 467. The principal authorities for the life of Pausanias are Herodotus (ix. 10 sq.) and Thucydides (i. 94, 95, 128-134). There is a biography of him by Cornelius Nepos. See also Diodorus, xi. 29- 34, 44-46 ; Pausanias, iii. 4, 7 and ib. 17, 7 ; Plutarch, Tkcmistoclcs, 23 ; Id., Aristidcs, 11, 14-20, 23 ; Aristodemus, ii. iv. vi.-viii. (in Midler s Fragm. Hist. Grsec., vol. v.) ; Justin, 2, 14. PAUSANIAS, a prose-writer (Aoyoypa^os) of Greek traditions, mythical and historical, and a critic of Greek art. His important work, in ten books, called EAAaSos ITepi?/yr;o-6s, usually known as Pausanix Descriptio Grsecise, has come down to us entire. It is strictly an itinerary through the Peloponnesus, including Attica, Boeotia, and Phocis, with a rather slight mention of the adjacent islands and some of the principal towns on the Asiatic coast. It was evidently compiled by one whose interest was mainly centred in making notes of art-collections as they existed in the Greek temples and public places in the time of the Antonines. In connexion with these he expatiates on the myths and legends locally preserved, and thus he has handed down to us much valuable mythological material which would otherwise have been lost. A large portion of his work, however, is devoted to Greek history, properly so called, though, after the manner of Herodotus and the early logographers, he draws no distinction between legend and history. In a general sense he may be styled an antiquary rather than an art-critic, a man of industry rather than of genius, and one who deserves praise more from the matter of his work than for the manner of it. Of the personal history of Pausanias nothing is recorded. He lived during the prosperous times of the Eoman empire under Hadrian, whom he often mentions by name, and his successors An toninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, the latter of whom be came emperor in 161 A.D. His wars against the German Marcomanni are alluded to, 1 and Antoninus Pius 2 is also named in reference to his successful contest with the Moors. Mention is also made of the "Avail" raised be tween the Forth and the Clyde by the elder Antonine to keep off the assaults of the Brigantes. About himself and his birthplace the author is singularly reticent. Nor has his work any formal introduction or conclusion. He com mences abruptly with a description of Attica : " The mainland of Hellas off the Cyclades and opposite the ^Egean Sea is called Attica, the jutting headland of which is Sunium. There is a harbour when you have sailed past this foreland, and a temple of Athena the Sunian goddess on the height." He goes on to describe Athens at consi derable length, and gives a valuable though too brief account of the Parthenon and the great bronze statue of the goddess on the Acropolis, the work of Phidias, 3 the 1 Descr. Gr., viii. (Arcadica), 43, 6. 2 viii. 43, 5, TOVTOV Ewre/S?; rbv /3a<nX^a fK<iecra.i> ol Pw/J-cuoi, 5i6n r-fi $ TO Qeiov TL/ATJ /xdXterra <paivero x/WjUevos. The epithet is usually attributed to the affection shown to the memory of Hadrian, by whom he had been adopted. 3 i. 28, 2. This statue is referred to by Aristophanes (Eq., 1172) and Euripides (Here. Fur., 1003). spear and helm of which were visible to those sailing into the harbour from Sunium. On the ivory and gold statue of the goddess in the Parthenon (c. 24) he Avrites very briefly ; on the Erechtheum and its antiquities he expa tiates more largely. The great temple of Ephesus, the very site of which was lost till Mr Wood s explorations between 1863 and 1874, appears to have been perfect in his time, but he does not describe it; he merely says 4 that "Ionia contains temples such as are not elsewhere to be seen, and first of all that of the Ephesian goddess, remarkable for its size and its wealth in general." Like Herodotus and Strabo, Pausanias was a traveller and an inquirer. In some respects it is probable that he imitates the manner of Herodotus, as in his credulity 5 and the affectation of reserve in sacred matters. But, while geography and ethnology chiefly engaged the atten tion of Strabo, art and antiquities generally form the staple of Pausanias s work. The passion of the Romans for securing specimens of Greek art had long been fed by the plunder of temples and the removal of statues from the towns of the Greek provinces, so graphically described in the orations against Verres. Pausanias comments on the great antiquity of this kind of sacrilege. "It is clear," he remarks, 6 " that Augustus was not the first who estab lished the custom of carrying away offerings from the temples of conquered nations, but that he merely followed a very old precedent." And he quotes many examples of statues removed by right of conquest, as from Troy, from Brauron and Branchidce by Xerxes, from Tiryns by the Argives, &c. In the age of the Antonines special attention was directed to the works of art still remaining in the Greek cities. The work known as Antonine s Itinerary, which is a kind of handbook of the whole Roman empire and its complex system of roads and colonies, may have suggested to Pausanias a " Description of Greece," on the lines laid down by Herodotus and Strabo ; but we have no exact date of the composition of either work. Leland compiled his Itinerary or tour through Britain on much the same principles, and his record of churches and castles as they remained in the later years of Henry VIII. is a survey of mediseval art which resembles the notes of Pausauias formed from his own inquiry and observation. The vast wealth of the Greek cities in statuary and sculpture, which had been accumulating from the 5th century B.C. till the capture of Corinth by Mummius, may be judged of by the records of the plunderings of Verres and the costly purchases of Cicero 7 and his successors to the time of Nero, and even of Hadrian, which are matters of history. Nevertheless, after the drain of more than three centuries, "Pausanias," says Mr. "Westropp, 8 "was able to describe 2827 statues." Whether Pausanias had any real taste or enthusiasm for or judgment of fine art does not appear from his somewhat matter- of-fact accounts. He reminds us of a catalogue of goods made with the view of a sale, minus the auctioneer s "puffing." Nor is his motive much more apparent ; he may have written to let connoisseurs know what was yet to be had, or to put on record existing works, with the names of the artists, as a protest against further spoliation, or he may have been commissioned by imperial authority to make a list of the art-treasures still exhibited to travellers in the Roman provinces. In the century from Augustus to Trajan Greek education in art, literature, and philosophy was much affected by the rich and well-born Romans, and collections of Greek bronzes and real or spurious articles of antiquity were keenly competed for, as we know from many of the epigrams of Martial. 9 Pausanias does not usually say that an object is beautiful ; he tells us what it is, where it is, and who executed it ; that is generally all. Occasionally he remarks that a statue is " worth 4 vii. (Achaica), 5, 2. 5 As when he says, as if seriously (viii. 2, 4), that it seems to him quite credible that Lycaon was changed into a wolf and Niobe into a stone in the good old times when the gods conversed with men on earth. 6 viii. 46, 2. 7 Often referred to in his letters to Atticus. 8 The Cycle of Development of the Art of Sculpture in Greece and Ro -me, lect. v. p. 166. 9 Propertius has a curious critique on the relative merits of the Greek sculptors and painters (iv. 8, 9-16). In elegy 4 of the same bonk, ver. 6, he disclaims the character of a wealthy collector, " nee miser tera paro clade, Corinthe, tua."