Apart from Augustus, the only Julio-Claudian emperor to whom Pausanias pays significant attention is Nero, the starting point for this chapter. Pausanias' few references to the remaining Julio-Claudian emperors were considered in the first part of chapter 3, along with the reasons behind his omitting some emperors altogether (namely Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Nerva and Titus). The fact that the greater part of this chapter is devoted to Hadrian accurately reflects the distribution of Pausanias' writings on the emperors of this period. I argued in chapter 1 for the importance of Hadrian in shaping the world in which Pausanias grew up, and the points made there should be borne in mind here.

As well as Pausanias' view of Nero and Hadrian, his brief references to Vespasian, Trajan, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius are also discussed in this chapter.

NERO

Nero may be regarded as the second most philhellene of the emperors whose reigns are covered in this study, after Hadrian. Like Claudius, he was a speaker of Greek. The most celebrated aspect of his philhellenism was his visit to Greece in ad 66/7, particularly his declaration of freedom for Achaia at the Isthmian games.

More than in the case of other emperors extensively treated by Pausanias (and he has more to say on Nero than on any bar Augustus and Hadrian), Nero's character forms a constant theme. The general attitude of the sources towards Nero is hostile, and Pausanias' account will be compared with those sources.

INTRODUCTION

The following three chapters consider in detail the writings and attitudes of Pausanias concerning the ruling figures of Roman Greece. The first part of this chapter considers some of the criteria for selection which caused Pausanias to omit, or refer only briefly, to some of the emperors; the latter part concerns Pausanias' attitudes to Mummius and Sulla. Chapter 4 will concern Caesar and Augustus; and chapter 5 those emperors whom Pausanias discusses of the period from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, with particular emphasis on Hadrian.

The starting-point for these chapters is Mummius' destruction of Corinth in 146 bc, seen as a seminal moment in Greek history not only by modern scholars, but by Pausanias himself. There had, of course, been considerable earlier involvement of the Romans with Greece, and Pausanias has much to say on the Hellenistic period to 146 bc, besides his more widely acknowledged interest in Classical and earlier Greece. This was also the period when the Romans developed the habit of despoiling Greece of its art, a practice by no means original to them, as Pausanias was well aware (8.46.2; see below, p. 128), but one at which they became expert. The inglorious deeds of Marcellus at Syracuse in 211 bc are the most notable early example, and among the Romans ‘from that time came the very beginning of enthusiasm for Greek works of art and consequently of this general licence to despoil all kinds of buildings, sacred and profane’ (Livy 25.40.2; cf. Plut. Marc. 21.1).

The origin of this study lies unashamedly in its author's fascination with Pausanias, who has been (to borrow a phrase used by Sir John Beazley of the Berlin Painter) ‘a friendly presence’ in the study, in the lecture room and on site for ten years.

Chapter 2 is adapted from Arafat (1992), parts of which have also been used in chapter 1 (with the kind permission of the British School at Athens). References to Pausanias are taken from the Teubner edition of M.H. Rocha-Pereira, vols. I—III (2nd edn, Leipzig 1989—90). Unless otherwise specified, translations of Pausanias are taken from Frazer vol. 1, and of other authors from the Loeb editions, in both cases with modifications. Transliterations are mainly Hellenized, but some inconsistencies result from the retention of familiar forms.

The researching of this book, as well as its writing, has been immeasurably enhanced by the companionship of Catherine Morgan who (if I may return the compliment) ‘bore the rigours of fieldwork with fortitude’. I also owe much to my parents for their unstinting support, expressed in so many forms. I have benefited greatly from the patient encouragement of Pauline Hire of Cambridge University Press, and from the comments of the anonymous referees. The help of the staff and volunteers of the Library of the Institute of Classical Studies in London has considerably facilitated my work.

In this chapter I consider the benefactors, or euergetai, whom Pausanias mentions, other than the emperors. They comprise the Augustan and the Hadrianic Eurykles of Sparta; Philopappos of Commagene, whose monument in Athens was erected in c.114–6; ‘Aithidas’ of Messene (mid second century ad); ‘the Roman senator Antoninus’ (a contemporary of Pausanias, whose floruit was in the 160s); and Herodes Atticus (c.ad 103–79). The length of this chapter reflects the markedly small number of such benefactors, and the proportion of it devoted to Herodes Atticus also reflects Pausanias' own attentions. Both of these aspects are worth examination.

Herodes Atticus was a contemporary of Pausanias and a man whose activities in Greece – well attested by Pausanias – are unique in their scope for a private individual in this period. These activities (and those of Herodes elsewhere) reveal a man who acted in many respects in the manner of an emperor, and shed an informative light on the practice of private benefaction in Pausanias' day. It is the sheer scale of Herodes' capacity to act as a benefactor that makes him so exceptional, allowing him, for example, to create his own private projects such as his estates at Marathon and Loukou, as well as the more conspicuous public monuments.

The primary purpose of such benefactions is publicity for the benefactor: one acts thus in order to be noticed. Hence being mentioned by writers such as Pausanias was part of the purpose of these benefactions, part of the pay-off.

In the course of describing his travels in mainland Greece in the second century ad, Pausanias explicitly and implicitly reveals many of his attitudes and preferences towards the past and the present which governed, and arose from, those travels. In this book, I consider how Pausanias approached and carried out the task he had set himself. The major part of the study concerns his attitudes to the Romans in Greece, but his attitudes to the past are also considered, and it is a central tenet that Pausanias' examination of the present is indistinguishable from that of the past, indeed that the former was shaped to a significant extent by the latter. Pausanias himself is the starting point of this study: it is not a study of Greece and Rome, nor of provincial attitudes, Roman buildings, or individual emperors. It would not be possible (even if it were my intention) to look at all that the Romans built or dedicated in Greece nor at their pervasive impact on life in the province of Achaia.

There have been several full-scale commentaries since the pioneering (and still, in some respects, unsurpassed) work of Sir James Frazer. The ever-growing wealth of archaeological evidence (mostly confirming the value of Pausanias) increasingly renders the compilation of a comprehensive commentary an impractically burdensome task. In tandem, there have been many articles and monographs on aspects of Pausanias, including several in recent years, of which that by Christian Habicht is the broadest in scope.