Axion Theas: Wonder, Space, and Place in Pausanias' Periegesis Hellados

The Periegesis Hellados presents a description of the sites and sights of Roman Greece in ten carefully constructed books. These books present the fruits of author’s extensive travels and careful textual research over the course of several decades (between the 130’s and ca. AD 175-80) and compiled into a unified composite itinerary. There is no doubt that Pausanias travels through an “already written landscape,” and his travel experience is necessarily informed by and sometimes clearly motivated by his literary encounters. This project investigates Pausanias’ engagement with literary antecedents, with a particular focus on the antiquarian impulse to excerpt and compile anecdotes in thematic catalogues, which broadly resemble wonder-texts (paradoxographies). The organizing principle of these thematic catalogues contrasts with the topographical (spatial) structure of the frame narrative of the Periegesis. In part, this study aims to resolve the perceived tension between the travel account and the antiquarian mode in Pausanias’ project in order to show that they serve complementary rather than competing ends. Resolution of these competing paradigms allows in turn for a more coherent understanding of the Periegesis as unified subject. This study argues that wonder (thauma) is a unifying theme of Periegesis Hellados. Through epiphanies and descriptions of marvels, whether in catalogues or tied to particular features on his route, Pausanias negotiates the unbridgeable ontological distance between human and divine agents through a discourse of the marvelous that is firmly rooted geographic specificity. This study suggests the Periegesis Hellados can be broadly understood as an attempted re-enchantment of Hellas in the imperial age.Ph.D