Pausanias, one of the most eminent of Greek geographers and historians, was probably a native of Lydia in Asia Minor, and flourished under Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Aurelius. He travelled through almost all Greece, Macedonia, and Italy, and also through part of Asia and Africa, and composed from his observations and researches an Itinerary of Greece (Hellados Periégesis) in ten books, describing the different parts of that country, and giving a particular account of the monuments of art and of the legends connected with them. His style is unpretentious and easy, although devoid of any special literary grace, but his Itinerary possesses the rare merit of being the work of an honest and accurate eye-witness. Pausanias was a man of marvellous industry, and is one of the earliest examples of the antiquary in the full modern sense of that word. Even in his treatment of works of art he is ever the antiquary rather than the critic, and his observations seldom rise out of the prosaic atmosphere proper to the catalogue. But he has the saving grace of accuracy, and his work, bare and meagre as it is, remains one of the most precious records of antiquity that we possess. He has not grasped the distinction between legend and history; or, more correctly, dominated by the instinct of the collector, he has recorded everything that he learned, historical fact and local legend alike. Hence his work is a mine of wealth to the student of mythology and folklore, no less than to the archaeologist proper.
The best editions are those of Siebelis (5 vols. 1822-28) and of Schubart and Walz (3 vols. 1838-40)—the latter reprinted in Teubner's series (2 vols. 1862). There are English translations by A. R. Shilleto (1886) and J. G. Frazer (1898). See also Kalkmann, Pausanias der Perieget (1886); and Margaret Verrall's Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens (1890).