Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I. — John Shaqi
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
_BOHN’S CLASSICAL LIBRARY._
PAUSANIAS’ DESCRIPTION OF
GREECE.
PAUSANIAS’
DESCRIPTION OF GREECE,
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
WITH NOTES AND INDEX
BY ARTHUR RICHARD SHILLETO, M.A.,
_Sometime Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge_.
VOLUME I.
“Pausanias est un homme qui ne manque ni de bon sens ni de
bonne foi, mais qui croit ou au moins voudrait croire à ses dieux.”
--CHAMPAGNY.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS,
YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1886.
CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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