Describing Greece: Landscape and Literature in the Periegesis of Pausanias. Greek Culture in the Roman World by William Hutton

Abstract

282 BOOK REVIEWS Describing Greece: Landscape and Literature in the Periegesis of Pausanias. By WILLIAM HUTTON. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 372. Cloth, $111.00. ISBN 0–521–84720–6. Pausanias is one of those ancient authors, like Strabo and Pliny the Elder, whose literary output has long been valued as an unmotivated repository of objective data. Like those same authors, Pausanias’ esteem has improved with the deepening interest in Imperial culture generally, and particularly the “Second Sophistic.” Over the past two decades, following the seminal study by Christian Habicht,1 scholars have explored with fresh vigor the social and cultural setting, themes and strategies of the Periegesis Hellados.2 Among these works, Describing Greece by William Hutton (H.) is distinguished as a vastly detailed reading that aims for a comprehensive picture of Pausanias the literary and cultural figure. The project probably seemed more bold (cf. pp. xi–xiii) as a Texas dissertation in the early 1990s, when the studies of Habicht and a young Jaś Elsner were still defining the field. The excellent, ambitious monograph that has come from this thesis synthesizes earlier scholarship and offers a wholly new assessment of Pausanias and the Periegesis. According to his introductory chapter (pp. 1–29), H. endeavors to understand the Periegesis on its own terms and in its own time. This is not a new goal, but no previous study has pursued it on such a scale and succeeded on so many levels. Pausanias, H. asserts, was a dynamic and erudite thinker with a distinct range of interests. His cohesive work was the product of a cultural setting intensely engaged with the Classical Greek past but defined by the Roman Imperial present. In other words, Pausanias was not a “dependable dullard,” H.’s favorite catchphrase for old interpretations that underrate Pausanias’ mind and quarry the Periegesis for nuggets of realia . Instead, the author should be viewed as an innovative “nonconformist ” (pp. 51–3), because of his unparalleled investment in the description of places, his focus on the old Greek gods, his studious 1 Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece, Sather Classical Lectures 50 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985; rev. ed. 1998). 2 E.g., Domenico Musti and Mario Torelli, eds., Pausania: Guida della Grecia 1–8 (Milan, 1990–2003, 3rd ed.); Jaś Elsner, “Pausanias: A Greek Pilgrim in the Roman World,” P&P 135 (1992) 3–29; Jean Bingen, ed., Pausanias historien, Fondation Hardt, Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 41 (Geneva, 1996); Karim W. Arafat, Pausanias’ Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers (Cambridge, 1996); Viciane Pirenne-Delforge and Gérald Purnelle, eds., Pausanias: Periegesis 1–2 (Liège, 1997); W. Kendrick Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes 1–2 (Amsterdam, 1998–9); Susan E. Alcock, John F. Cherry and Jaś Elsner, eds., Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece (New York, 2001); Johanna Akujärvi, Researcher, Traveller, Narrator: Studies in Pausanias’ Periegesis, Studia Graeca et Latina Lundensia 12 (Stockholm, 2005); Maria Pretzler, Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece (London, 2007). BOOK REVIEWS 283 avoidance of Atticism and his reticence to present himself in an era of competitive intellectualism. Chapter 2 (pp. 30–53), which serves as an extended introduction, aims to contextualize the Periegesis in social, economic and cultural history. H. already identified (pp. 9–11) the elusive author conventionally as an educated, wealthy resident of a city in Asia Minor, possibly Magnesia on Sipylus, who was active during the middle to late 2nd century. His outline of “Pausanias’ world” is prudent: Mediterranean travel flourished in a peaceful age; Hellenism was a mark of cultural sophistication within a network of elite associations; Greeks could view the Roman conquest as a misfortune while appreciating the benefits of Imperial stability and promoting their past among natives and foreigners alike. But certain observations are incomplete or wayward. Contrary to H.’s claims, the archaeology of ports and shipwrecks does not in fact reveal that “the majority of people whose movements have left some trace” possessed considerable political power, and frequent travel generated many pluralistic communities, not just “cultural homogenization” among elites (pp. 30–1). Moreover, H.’s treatment of the sophists is too simple, and one wonders whether they...