“On the Greek mainland, facing the Cyclades and the Aegean Sea, there is a promontory called Sunium.”
Description of Greece 1.1
Pausanias toured the Greek mainland and beyond in the second century CE, recording temples, statues, tombs, rituals and the stories attached to them. Ten books survive, moving region by region from Attica to Phocis.
He is indispensable because he reports local versions of myths that the great poets ignored, and because he describes buildings and cults that archaeology later confirmed. He repeats what he is told, and often says plainly that he does not believe it.
Legacy
His topography has guided excavators at Olympia, Delphi and Mycenae, and he is the chief source for many regional myths.