Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T02:05:03.145Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Politics and Greek Myth

from Part II - Response, Integration, Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2009

Roger D. Woodard
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Buffalo
Get access

Summary

Pausanias has long been essential reading for archaeology students and those interested in reconstructing the topography of ancient poleis. Yet - as anybody who has been frustrated by such infuriatingly vague directions as 'not far from' or 'a little further on' can testify - Pausanias is not overwhelmingly interested in offering his readers a detailed guided tour of sites to see. Rather, the monuments that are described are the repositories of local narratives, both factual and fictional, that constitute an important part of the cultural heritage of a Greece now enslaved to Rome. In the description of the Argive agora, for example, the reader is introduced in short order to the tomb where Danaus' daughter Hypermnestra and her husband Lynceus are buried (2.21.2), the tumulus where Perseus interred Medusa’s head (21.5) and the underground bronze chamber in which Acrisius incarcerated Danae (23.7). Each polis that Pausanias visits grounds its unique identity in the specific matrix of myths and memories that are conveyed through such visible monuments.

Myth was not, however, confined to affairs within the polis. From at least the fifth century, diplomatic relationships between poleis had been articulated through the vocabulary of kinship (syngeneia), often explained in terms of mythical connections between the two communities. Thus, at about the time when Pausanias was writing (probably in the 160s and 170s CE), an inscription was set up in the Argive agora celebrating the kinship between Argos and Cilician Aegeae and noting that it dated back to the time when Perseus, son of Danae, travelled to Cilicia in his hunt for the Gorgons.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×