Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  The general method of description seems to be to describe the road to some central spot, such as the market-place, and to make this a starting point. Pausanias first gives the chief objects of interest at his centre, and then, taking in turn the chief roads leading from it, describes the sights to be seen along each, returning after a while to the starting point to begin again with a fresh road.

  He does not profess to give an exhaustive account. “From the beginning my narrative has picked out of much material the things that deserve to be recorded.” Such is the rule governing his work; he commends himself for adopting it, and promises never to break it.

  GREEK RELIGION

  It will be seen that most of the sights noted by Pausanias had religious associations. Indeed, in the eyes of a Greek, everything that he could not explain, everything that puzzled or awed him, was of divine origin, and in those early and pre-scientific days the realm of the unexplained was a large one. A Greek instinctively personified the forces, powers and processes of nature, both of the animate and of the inanimate world, and this personification nearly always resulted in assigning to these aspects of nature human forms endowed with divine and miraculous characteristics, that is, in the creation of anthropomorphic gods and goddesses.

  Greek religion is of disputed origin, or origins, but it is certainly a complex. It consists of several different kinds of belief, with some of which the reader of Pausanias ought to be familiar. Three of them, at least, must be briefly noticed.

  First there is ancestor worship, the payment of divine honours to “heroes.” These divinities were on a lower level than the “gods,” (Sometimes a “hero” became a “god” in course of time. Instances of such a change are (probably) Asclepius and Heracles. See, e g. Pausanias ii x.

  ) and some modern scholars plausibly conjecture that the worship of them was the native religion (One of the strongest pieces of evidence in support of this theory is derived from the methods of disposing of the dead. Archaeology tells us that the primitive inhabitants buried their dead, and were therefore likely to conceive of them as living a ghostly existence underground near their family; the Achaeans of Homer, supposed to be the later conquerors, burned their dead, and therefore were likely to believe that the spirits of the departed left the scene of their earthly activities to take up their abode in a distant Hades.) of the primitive inhabitants of the country, who were conquered just before the dawn of Greek history by a race from the North, who introduced the “gods.” Be this as it may, the hero depended on his descendants for sustenance to enable him to enjoy such existence as fell to his lot, and it was therefore their bounden duty to pay him the traditional honours if they wished to keep his friendship. The ritual of this service is expressed in Greek by a special verb, ‘enagisein’ (To sacrifice to a “god” was ‘thein’). The offerings to a hero were not burnt; the sweet savour ascending to heaven was for the “upper gods.” The dead hero in the ground was nourished by drink and food, especially by the blood of victims, sent down to him through his grave. Usually the sacrifice was not shared in by the worshippers, but was all sacred to the hero. The shrine of the hero was called an ‘eroon’.

  Early in Greek history, probably during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., there spread through Greece a religious movement to which the name Orphism, a name derived from the Orpheus of legend, has been given. Orphism taught that man was a creature of sin and defilement, that the body was the prison of the soul, and that by ceremonial purification the soul could win a more blessed existence in the world to come. This movement found concrete expression in the “mysteries,” initiation in which was sought by those who were depressed by a consciousness of sin or by the awful facts of life and death. Mysteries were associated with the worship of the dead and with various deities, (Pausanias mentions, e g., mysteries of Demeter, of the Great Gods, and of a hero Dryops.) but especially with Demeter and her worship at Eleusis. The ritual, if we may judge from the little we know about it, (The Greeks were careful not to divulge the holy secrets. We know however that they were acts, ritual and perhaps pantomime, rather than a liturgy of words.) was trivial and absurd, but there can be no doubt that it did much to satisfy the emotional side of the religious instincts of the Greeks. Its modern analogue is perhaps the Salvation Army.

  Thirdly, we have as a component of Greek religion nature-worship, the deification of physical forces and physical impulses. The instinct which created the fairies, brownies, elves and mermaids of our own legends gave to the Greeks that wonderful hierarchy, (It is not implied that all ‘theoi’ originated in nature-worship, but only that such worship is an important factor in this part of Greek religion. Although Greek religion has many aspects, it must not be thought that these are altogether separate and unconnected. The exact relations, however, that they bear to one another are largely a matter of conjecture.) with the nymphs and muses at one end and Zeus, the king of the gods, at the other. Round their names there gradually grew a matchless mythology, which was at once the inspiration and the theme of the best Greek art. Maintained by the state, although often helped by private gifts and benefactions, the more honourable of these cults, in spite of their obvious drawbacks, not only afforded an outlet for religious devotion, but also presented to the Greek mind idealised conceptions of man’s activities and aspirations. Anthropomorphism, with all its defects, (These defects are largely due to the conservatism of religious traditions, which preserve and pass on to the future the ideals of a less developed, less moral, past.) provides the worshipper with a deity that he can understand, to whom he can attribute, sometimes indeed his vices, but more often his noblest virtues, raised to a height they never attain in the actual, workaday world. A conception like that of Athena, once thoroughly established, grew; poets and sculptors purified and enriched it, and the religious consciousness of the worshipper, deepening ever from age to age, gave to it a fuller and nobler significance. It was to art that religion owed most; indeed, art exerted that purifying influence which is exerted on modern religions by the development of the moral sense. The grandeur of the Parthenon and the majesty of the Athena of Pheidias could not fail to awake in Athenian hearts loftier notions both of divinity and of womanhood.

  The ritual that formed part of the worship of a “god” differed from the ritual of “hero” worship. The offering, or rather a part (The thigh-bones wrapped in fat.) of it, was burnt, so as to send a sweet smell to the deity above; after the sacrifice, the rest of the victim formed part of a feast shared in by both worshippers and priest.

  Even this brief summary of Greek religion must not entirely omit the ceremonies of riddance, ritual by which the Greeks tried to ward off evil influences which they did not attempt to personify. These rituals often had affinities to magic, and are perhaps the most primitive and degraded element in Greek belief. Probably the Thesmophoria and the Lithobolia (Stoning) were ceremonies of this type.

  Finally, we have the cults that were imported late, those for example of Isis and Serapis, signs of the close connexion between Greece and Egypt, and also those of the Roman emperors, to whom every subject of the Roman empire was expected to pay his respects.

  There were no sermons and few prayers in Greek worship. Its object was, not to edify the worshipper, but to persuade the god or goddess to grant a favour. The chief means employed of persuading the deity were burnt sacrifice, processions, dances and hymns.

  It should be noticed that there was no priestly caste. Many of the priesthoods were held by girls or women, and, with very few exceptions, no ministers of the gods laid any claim to peculiar sanctity. There were indeed diviners, who were more skilled than ordinary men in interpreting omens or in discovering the intentions of heaven, but, on the whole, Greek religion was singularly free from priestcraft (Possibly there was most priestcraft in the oracles, especially that at Delphi, and in the mysteries.) of any kind.

  SURNAMES OF GODS

  Any reader of Pausanias will be struck by the number of epithets or surnames attached to the
names of certain gods. The following is a list of the chief divinities he mentions with the number of surnames given to each: —

  Aphrodite.. — 27

  Apollo... — 58

  Ares.... — 4

  Artemis... — 64

  Asclepius.. — 10

  Athena...59

  Core.... — 6

  Demeter.. — 26

  Dionysus.. — 27

  Dioscuri.. — 2

  Fortune.. — 3

  Hera... — 18

  Heracles.. — 11

  Hermes.. — 15

  Muses... — 2

  Nymphs.. — 10

  Pan.... — 4

  Poseidon.. — 18

  Sleep... — 1

  Zeus... — 67

  Pausanias gives no surnames of Cronus, Hephaestus, Leto, Pluto, or of the Graces.

  The mere number of epithets attached to a deity is a fair test of the power of his cult to appeal to the religious instinct. But a closer examination of them will enable a reader to appreciate passages in Pausanias which otherwise may be almost meaningless.

  Many of the epithets merely refer to the city or place in which the cult was established. Thus Artemis was called Brauronian, Ephesian, Munychian and Tauric; Poseidon was Heliconian, Isthmian, Onchestian, Taenarian.

  Other surnames are derived from the names of animals. In many cases, without a doubt, the deity was originally an animal, or at any rate manifested himself in the form of an animal: while in other cases the epithet merely refers to some legend about the deity. Examples are: —

  Apollo....Wolf-god.

  Apollo....Locust-god.

  Athena...Horse-goddess.

  Zeus....Cuckoo-god.

  Artemis...Goat-goddess.

  Not a few surnames are taken from the names of plants sacred to the deity, for instance, Demeter Grass and Dionysus Ivy.

  A great number of epithets refer to some mode in which the divine power manifests itself, or to an aspect or characteristic of the deity, either (a) general or (b) peculiar to a particular time or place. Thus Zeus was: —

  Lord of Thunderbolts.

  Lord of Dust.

  Cleanser.

  Gracious.

  Saviour.

  Apollo was: —

  Lord of Embarking.

  Lord of Streets.

  Healer.

  Again, the surname may mark the supplanting of one deity by another, as Artemis supplanted Dictynna, the Goddess of Nets, Apollo Carneus, and Hermes (apparently) a hero Aepytus. In other cases the epithet perpetuates some detail of a legend (Athena Trumpet), of a temple (Athena of the Bronze House), or even of a type of image (Athena Sharp-sighted). In a great number of cases the meaning can only be guessed at, or has been entirely lost.

  Nothing is known about Pausanias’ death. It is believed that in later years he crossed over to Italy, visiting the cities of Campania and the wonders of Rome.