SOURCE: "Pausanias as an Historian," The Classical Weekly, Vol. VII, No. 18, March 7, 1914, pp. 138-41; Vol. VII, No. 19, March 14, 1914, pp. 146-50.

In the following excerpt, Ebeling describes Pausanias's use of digressions and his debt to Polybius in his scheme of relating history.

The periegesis of Pausanias is regarded in two lights: first, as a description of the monuments of Greece, of inestimable value to the archaeologist; secondly, as a repository of myths, legends, love stories, tales of notable natural phenomena, and numerous facts of history, given either in the form of brief notes, or in extensive introductions and excursuses.… The problem has been to a large extent to establish the relationship Pausanias holds to what is known as periegetical literature. This had its beginnings in the local histories of Ionia: year-books, chronicles, genealogies, and stories of the founding of cities. Charon of Lampsacus, the Lesbian Hellanicus and, especially, Hecataeus...