Reviews for Description of Greece, Volume I: Books 1-2 (Attica and Corinth) (Loeb Classical Library)

The average rating for Description of Greece, Volume I: Books 1-2 (Attica and Corinth) (Loeb Classical Library) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-01-26 00:00:00 Kathleen Driscoll This is another one of the continuing series on the classical books which everyone cites, but no one reads. Pausanias' Description of Greece is, in essence, a literary travel book covering central and southern Greece in the late second century AD. It moves around from city to city looking for notable sights which range from temples/sanctuaries (many, many temples/sanctuaries) to extended descriptions of art work to short historical excurses. The Description of Greece is eclectic, detailed and kind of fun in a extremely geeky kind of way. The fact that I'm just over a week away from going on a tour of Greece with my students just adds to the fun. I was particularly struck by the historical detail in this book. In fact, this is the first source I've read that gives a detailed discussion of the Spartan-Messenian Wars from the 7th century BC and the Gallic invasion of 279 BC. Pausanias' freely quotes from historians long lost to us and acts as important historical source in his own right. However, the primary focus of the book are the temples/sanctuaries of Greece and the artwork associated with them. So, historians of religion and of art find this book extremely helpful. The attention given to identifying pieces by particular artists and the sometimes very lengthy descriptions of art work gives us some context for the artwork that we know about now. Mythology plays a major role in this work, although I began to get a feeling that almost every city, region, body of water and land features was named for some hero or god or the other. Pausanias really isn't read enough, although I should note that a strong stomach for eclectic detail is called for when reading this. Don't get bogged down with detail. Just let it wash over and look for the interesting bits.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-19 00:00:00 Dan Baggio If you are going to see Greece, bring along Pausanias' guide that he wrote in the 2nd century C.E. It still works.