Search results for "Pausanias"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Memory lost, memory regained. Considerations on the recovery of Sacred Texts in Messenia and in Biblical Israel: A Comparison
2013
The fourth book of Pausanias’ Periegesis may be read as an excursus in the collective memory of the Messenian people, condemned to almost 300 years of sorrowful diaspora after a conflict with the Spartans. According to the oracles, the possibility of a homecoming is linked to a small secret object, which, if properly kept, would guarantee the recovery of the lost land. Legend has it that this object was hidden in the mounts of Ithome by Aristomenes, the hero of the Messenian resistance against Sparta’s oppression and an expert of oracular knowledge. Many years later, a dream vision reveals to Epaminondas and to the military chief Epiteles the exact site where Aristomenes supposedly buried t…
Ocean’s Child Worshipping Nemesis in Ancient Rhamnous
2019
In un passo della Periegesi (i, 33, 2-4), Pausania riferisce che la statua di Nemesis, nel demo attico di Ramnunte, era opera di Fidia ed era stata scolpita da un blocco di marmo pario che i Persiani portarono con loro all’epoca della battaglia di Maratona per farne un trofeo. Essi erano infatti convinti che avrebbero conquistato Atene. Il Periegeta descrive nel dettaglio l’agalma della dea, definendola la più implacabile contro gli hybristai. La statua portava sulla testa una corona decorata con cervi e piccoli agalmata di Nike. Nella mano sinistra aveva un ramo di melo, mentre nella destra una phiale sulla quale erano rappresentati degli Etiopi. Pausania dice di non essere stato in grado …
Squaring Nemesis: Alexander’s Dream, the Oracle, and the Foundation of the New Smyrna
2022
In the 7th book of the Periegesis, Pausanias devotes a long digression to the Ionian migration in Asia Minor, focusing briefly on the story of Smyrna, whose territory originally belonged to the Aeolian settlers and was then occupied, at the beginning of the 7th century, by the Ionians from nearby Colophon. The arrival of Alexander the Great in the region marked the beginning of a new phase for Smyrna. Pausanias reports that the Macedonian king, on his way back from a hunting expedition on Mount Pagos, arrived at the sanctuary of the Nemeseis. There, the divinities appeared to him in a dream telling him to find a city and to bring there the inhabitants of the older polis. The Smyrnaeans then…
Las cuatro muertes de Cleonice: poder, sexo, violencia y fantasmas
2019
Greek tradition links the death of regent Pausanias of Sparta with ghosts. In this paper, we focus on the well-known episode that revolves around Pausanias himself and a Byzantine maiden and is transmitted by Aristodemus, Plutarch and Pausanias Periegetes. The multiplicity of versions demands a comparative analysis, which we carry out taking into account the three spaces where the narrative action takes place (civic, intimate and ritual spaces). Results indicate a concordance between Plutarch and Pausanias Periegetes, as well as a dissonance between them and Aristodemus. This difference especially affects the narrative treatment of the maiden, a ghost properly so-called in Plutarch and Paus…