Pausanias’s Description of Greece

Sir James Frazer (1854-1941) is best remembered today for The Golden Bough, widely considered to be one of the most important early texts in the fields of psychology and anthropology. Originally a classical scholar, whose entire working life was spent at Trinity College, Cambridge, Frazer also produced this translation of and commentary on the works of Pausanias, the second-century CE traveller and antiquarian whose many references to myths and legends provided him with material for his great study of religion. The six-volume work was published in 1898, after the first edition of The Golden Bough (also reissued in this series), and while Frazer was working on material for the second. Volume 2 is a detailed commentary on Pausanias’ Book I, on Attica, using both the experience of Frazer’s own travels in Greece and the reports of other antiquarians and archaeologists.