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 debonne 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 helived during the Reign of the Antonines, and travelledall round Greece, and wrote his famous Tour round Greece,or Description of Greece, in 10 Books, describing what hehad seen and heard. His chief merit is his showing to usthe state of the works of art still remaining in his day inthe Greek cities, which have since been swept away by thevarious invasions that have devastated that once happyland. “When Pausanias travelled through Greece, duringthe age of the Antonines, about 1690 years ago, he foundevery city teeming with life and refinement; every Templea Museum of Art; and every spot hallowed by some traditionwhich contributed to its preservation. The ruthlessdestruction of these works of art, in subsequent ages, hasreduced them to a small number; and the Traveller nowpauses, with a melancholy interest, to reflect upon theobjects described by Pausanias, but which no longerexist.”[1]

Pausanias’ Description of Greece is also full of variousinformation on many topics. It is for example a mine ofMythology. For its various matter it has been happilycompared to a “County History.” There is often a quietvein of humour in Pausanias, who seems to have beenalmost equally a believer in Providence and in Homer.

I have translated from Schubart’s Text in the Teubner[Pg vi]Series, (1875), but have taken the liberty always, wherethe text seemed hopeless, to adopt a reading that seemedpreferable from any other source. I have constantly hadbefore 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 hetoo gives one reason to remember the famous lines of awell-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 owemuch to Schubart.

Cambridge,
May, 1886.

CONTENTS.