Pausanias was born approximately 110 AD into a Greek family in Magnesia ad Sipylum, a city in the province of Lydia, which was an Iron Age kingdom in what is now the western Turkish provinces of Izmir, Manisa and Usak. His youth was spent during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian (117 AD – 138 AD).
Pausanias well-educated and able to travel widely in Greece and beyond, including time to pursue his cultural interests, which implies that he must have enjoyed at least one important privilege: wealth.
Before visiting Greece, Pausanias had traveled widely in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Macedonia, Epirus (now in Greece and Albania), and parts of Italy. In Egypt, he had seen the pyramids. While at the temple of Ammon at Siwah, he had been shown the hymn once sent to that shrine by Pindar.
As a traveler, he used his firsthand observations to write a famous description of ancient Greece in a multi-book piece entitled Description of Greece which was written between the 150s and 170s AD. The Description is one of the most unusual works to survive from ancient literature, one of the most directly useful to Classical archaeologists active in mainland Greece - and one of the most fascinating for the discerning traveler.
In the ten volumes of the Description Pausanias refers frequently to the monuments and celebrations of Greek culture created by the Roman emperor Hadrian.
Pausanias' work has ended up influencing the development of classical archaeology to a larger degree than any other text. His many works are geared toward a Roman audience, since Romans wanted to know everything about the glories of Ancient Greece.
Pausanias – Greek traveler and geographer (110 – 180 AD)
