Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/404

Mycen^. 2)11 appears at once so natural and ingenious, based too on just appreciation of the literary habits of Pausanias, that we have no hesitation in espousing it. Is it self-delusion to feel as if Christian Belger had only forestalled us ? We are not of those who are inclined to think of Pausanias as a chamber traveller";^ the contrary thesis appears to me demonstrated ; it has for it the thoughtful approval of men having a practical knowledge of the principal monuments of Greece, which they inspected with Pausanias in their hand, and are thus entitled to be heard. That Dorpfeld is no mere book-worm the excavations at Olympia and elsewhere are there to testify ; yet he is firmly convinced that Pausanias visited Altis and noted down on the spot the relative position of the main buildings, registering names and votive inscriptions which he found engraved on bronze and marble. Nevertheless, in ancient as in modern times, travellers and even tourists have seldom failed to check, and above all complete in their library, notes taken in their journeyings with the assistance of books. However clever and painstaking, no one man is capable of seeing everything by himself, whilst statistical, historical, and other details requiring patient research, must be sought from authoritative works. No matter how many years it took Pausanias to accomplish his circular journey of Greece, when he began to collate his materials for writing his book, he could no more dispense with references which he found at hand, than his modern colleagues, Joanne, Baedeker, and the like. Pausanias had no local guides at Mycense to go over the monuments with him, and pour into his willing ear the myths pertaining to them. Here or never was the oppor- 1 No one had dreamt of challenging the reality of Pausanias* travels until quite lately. The dispute opened in 1877 by von Willamovitz-Mollendorff has been going on in Germany ever since ; Mollendorff scouts the notion that the Greek traveller obtained his information on the spot. He is followed by G. Hirschfeld {Pausanias und die Inschriften von Olympia^ in Archctologische Zeitung, 1882), and somewhat more circumstantially by Kalkmann {Pausanias der Periegety Berlin, Reimer). Both writers try to show that Pausanias chiefly compiled from literary sources, that his description of Olympia was taken from Polaemon and other travellers, and in consequence of it resembled the city of the Macedonian epoch rather than the Olympia of the second century of our era. These accusations were met by a very sensible paper from Gurlitt, in which the veracity of Pausanias is warmly upheld {Ueber Pausanias). Readers wishful to improve their French will find almost a complete list of the literature relating to this question in Pei^ue historique^ and in two articles by A. Hauvette {Rroue critique).