Nikolaos Papachatzis as an archaeologist - The edition of Pausanias

Nikolaos Papachatzis as an archaeologist The edition of Pausanias1 Pantos A. Pantos I remember from N. Papachatzis my first acquaintance that took place in the mid-60s, when a young student at the time and a visitor to the library of the Museum of Volos, I asked to meet him on an arrival from Thessaloniki to Volos, to buy some from the first volumes of the first edition of Pausanias, which he printed alone, at his own expense and toil, in an impeccable manner, with an excess of typesetting letters and surprising patience and diligence, in his printing machine, in Volos. Whoever leafs through that first edition even today (4 volumes, 2306 pages, 1963-1969) can only think with admiration of the achievement, much greater and much more admirable as a work of a man in relation to the means provided by Georgios Christopoulos of "Ekdotike Athenon" for the second edition (4 volumes, 2883 pages, 1974-1981). N. Papachatzis received me and offered me the two, I think, first volumes of Pausanias. He asked me about my interests and I told him that I would follow the Department of History - Archeology from the third year (then the first two years were common for all students of the Faculty of Philosophy). When at the end of our discussion I asked to pay the value of the volumes, he flatly refused. And when I asked him "why", his answer with a smile was: "Because you will read it!". That's where my first meeting with N. Papachatzis ended. His “Pausanias”, however, was a valuable companion in my student life. Since then I saw him sparsely and from time to time, especially in the Archaeological Society after his installation in Athens. When I once asked him if he would come to a conference on Thessaly, I think in the early 1980s, he replied that he did not go to conferences, 'on the other hand, minutes are published,'" he remarked. In the mid-1980s, Mr. Christopoulos provided him with a number of volumes of the new edition of Pausanias. On April 21, 1986, N. Papachatzis sent me a note, which I have, to go through "Ekdotike Athenon" to get “Pausanias”` volumes , which this time brought the personal dedication "with exceptional respect and great friendship". He would definitely give it to people he thought would read it. Why is the publication of Pausanias` ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ , by N. Papachatzis a colossal achievement, the importance of which far exceeded the Greek borders, which is rather unusual for modern Greek editions of ancient writers? Answering straight from the beginning and succinctly, we would say, because (a) this edition Speech at the literary memorial, Volos May 9, 2003 [the original Greek version is also published in: academia.edu] 1 1 was a mature request in the early 60's and because (b) the ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ of Pausanias, a work that requires a deep knowledge of Greek history and archeology, but also the topography, mythology and history of the ancient religion as well as solid literary knowledge in the ancient literature, could not find a better scholar and publisher than N. Papachatzis. Let's start with the second point. N. Papachatzis belonged to that generation of archaeologists who were fortunate to have in their student years top teachers in the Faculty of Philosophy of the then newly established Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, such as G. Sotiriadis, M. Triantaphyllidis, K. Papadakis, K. Romeos, I. Kakridis, Ch. Charitonidis, A. Delmouzos etc. This generation, from which N. Papachatzis scientifically developed himself, combined beyond the cultivation of the individual branches of archeology, a deep knowledge of the ancient texts and a wide supervision of the ancient world. And it is characteristic that one of his first works, printed in Volos in 1938, is entitled «Η επικοινωνία μας με την πνευματική ζωή των αρχαίων Ελλήνων» ("Our communication with the spiritual life of the ancient Greeks"). A year after graduating from the University in 1936, and working - I think - as an extraordinary archaeologist at the Museum of Volos, he published in Volos in 1937 his first work “Τα λείψανα και η ιστορία των αρχαίων πόλεων της περιοχής του Βόλoυ" (“The relics and the history of the ancient cities of the area of Volos"), in which appears the first field of his scientific interests, which he will cultivate consistently since then, i.e. ancient topography - a branch that presupposes both historical research and archaeological field research. The extensive knowledge of this subject is shown by his extensive article “H σημερινή θέση της τοπογραφικής μελέτης της Θεσσαλίας” ("The current position of the topographic study of Thessaly") in the journal of the Φιλάρχαιος Εταιρεία of Volos "ΘΕΣΣΑΛΙΚΑ", in 1959, where he essentially undertakes, continues and updates the older synthetic studies, especially the book of Fr.Staehlin, “Das hellenische Thessalien” (1924), which was recently translated into Greek. In the journal “Thessalika”, a local, but with international prestige, journal for ancient Thessaly published on a regular annual basis the rest of its topographic articles: «To Μακεδονικό ανάκτορο της Δημητριάδος» ("The Macedonian palace of Demetrias") in 1958 • «Μαγνησία, «πόλις υπό το Πήλιον» (“Magnesia, "city under Pelion") in 1959 • «H Κορόπη και το ιερό του Απόλλωνα» ("Korope and the sanctuary of Apollo") in 1960. When, unfortunately, this brilliant journal closed its cycle, and an attempt was made for a new beginning, but on another basis, with the AΡΧΕΙΟΝ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΙΚΩΝ ΜΕΛΕΤΩΝ (Archive of Thessalian Studies), N. Papachatzis is again present with his article «Τα οχυρά των Αντιγονιδών στο μυχό του 2 Παγασιτικού ως πρόκληση κατά της ελληνικής αυτονομίας» ("The fortresses of the Antigonids in the innards of the Pagasitikos Gulf as a challenge against Greek autonomy") in 1973. At the same time, he does not refuse to start publishing short, but responsible and extremely didactic archeological guides. «Μυκήνες και Τίρυνθα• ιστορία και μνημεία» ("Mycenae and Tiryns • history and monuments") in 1951, «Η περιοχή του Βόλου από άποψη αρχαιολογική και ιστορική» ("The area of Volos from an archaeological and historical point of view") in 1954, and the multilingual guide of the publishing house “Ekdotike Athenon” for ancient Corinth and the museums of Corinth, Isthmia and Sikyon. Three years after Paola Philippson's book, Thessalische Mythologie (Zurich 1944), a rather unsuccessful compilation, N. Papachatzis publishes in 1947 the small, hard-to-find but excellent book «Ζωή και θρησκεία στην αρχαία Ελλάδα» ("Life and Religion in Ancient Greece"). This book inaugurates his second, largest and certainly his most favorite circle of interests, ie the study of ancient religion, with a very special emphasis on the religion of ancient Thessaly. N. Papachatzis dedicated dozens of articles until the end of his life in this field which undoubtedly made him the most important Greek scholar of the ancient religion in the 20th century. In ancient religion his view is completely original, and the interpretation of its chthonic character is certainly an important contribution to the international literature, as is also evident from the two compositions he gave us, i.e. first the chapters on religion in the archaic era and Greek Mythology ( Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, Β΄(1971) p.66-157), on religion of classical times (Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, Γ2(1972) p.248-269), on religion in the Hellenistic and Roman years (Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, Ε΄(1974) p.402-423) and second the work of maturity, «Η θρησκεία στην αρχαία Ελλάδα» ("Religion in ancient Greece") (first edition 1987, second edition 1996). "The essence of the Greek religion," he writes in the preface, "has always been permeated with chthonic content that remained hidden behind any fascinating glimpse of it." “It was accessible only to anyone studying its first appearance, the form that religion had taken in the two centuries of its heyday (7th and 6th centuries BC), and above all the so-called "popular religion", along with the mystic cults that as long as the ancient religion lived had not ceased to reveal «τας ηδίους ελπίδας περί της του βίου τελευτής και περί του μέλλοντος αιώνος» ("the pleasant hopes about the end of life and the future century"). "The purpose of this study", he says at the beginning of the introduction of this book, "is to point out the special importance of 3 chthonic cults, after they appeared in island and mainland Greece until the end of antiquity2. The usual underestimation of these cults hinders the correct understanding of both religion and its evolutionary course ", and further notes "Here the chthonic cults [ie beyond the previous literature] are examined with the mystical and ecstatic ones, as well as with the religious purifications and other rituals of the popular religion and an attempt is made to explain how with them (and not with the official religion) were faced with the difficulties of life, but also the anxiety about the fate of the people beyond the grave that is at the center of the interest of all mature religions ". "A nobler religious life could not be expected in pre-Christian antiquity," he observes. In this view of the ancient religion, for which Pausanias, even writing in the 2nd c. AD, is an invaluable treasure of information, can be explained the special reversal and involvement of N. Papachatzis with the work of the περιηγητής. These two circles of interest, ancient topography and ancient religion, especially on its chthonic side, were the guarantees for the undertaking of the titanic work of Pausanias' publication. N. Papachatzis had started to deal with Pausanias early, as in 1954 he published the ATTIKA in the library of publishing house “Papyros”. Since then he had identified the need for the “EΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ” to be published, with a responsible editing of the ancient text, with a modern Greek translation and with extensive commentary. But why was such a thing necessary? The major annotated editions of Pausanias, namely that of James G. Frazer, Pausania`s Description of Greece (6 volumes, London 1898) and that of Hermann Hitzig - Hugo Bluemner, Des Pausanias Beschreibung von Griechenland (6 volumes, Leipzig 1896- 1910), were completed at a time when major excavations in Greece had already begun3, but was in progress, while many other places described by Pausanias, and some very important ones, such as the Agora of Athens, had not yet been discovered by the archaeological dig. Those two editions were undertaken in parallel, without the knowledge of either of them. The progress of the excavations since that time and the hundreds of archeological and philological scientific publications on places and topics, which Pausanias dealt with, called for a new great composition, a new annotated version of Pausanias, which would review the previous two . 2 With his article "The magical structure of religion in the Neolithic years", Archaeological Ephemeris 1983, 35-43, it goes back to the prehistoric period. 3 Kerameikos (1871-), Mycenae (1876), Olympia (1875-), Orchomenos (1880-), Epidauros (1881-), Eleusis (1882-), Acropolis of Athens (1884-), Tiryns (1884-), Mantineia ( 1887-), Lycosura (1889-), Delphi (1892). 4 N. Papachatzis, if we believe what he writes in the preface of the first edition, set in motion a less grandiose plan. "The purpose of the book", he writes in 1963 in ΚΟΡΙΝΘΙΑΚΑ - ΛΑΚΩΝΙΚΑ, “is the exact translation into modern Greek and the responsible commentary of Pausanias' text, so that every reader who used to not be satisfied with the easy work and the slovenliness can hold it in his hands with confidence"."The edition", he writes in the preface of the AΤΤΙΚΑ of the second edition, "first aims to give the ancient text as authentic as its modern critical restoration allows. The modern Greek translation was done with the utmost precision and clarity and in its relatively detailed commentary it was sought not the presentation of unknown material, but the accurate summarization of the findings of topographic and archaeological research, so that one can use the book with confidence ". What is certain is that the work far exceeded these goals, because there are extensive introductions in the volumes (the introduction for Pausanias, his work and his time and for the history of the text of Pausanias in ATTIKA volume of the second edition, p.1-66, can be considered as a small treatise), and the illustration of the volumes surpassed all previous ones worldwide. "Ekdotike Athenon", writes Georgios A. Christopoulos, "appreciating the usefulness of this work, took responsibility for this costly publication and enriched the text of Pausanias with extremely careful maps, topographic plans, responsible representations and many images from the places and the monuments described in the "EΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ". In this way it is convinced that it offers a work invaluable for education, for the studious scholars of historical sites and monuments and an aid for topographic and archaeological research ". N. Papachatzis places Pausanias outlining a panorama of his time, the Roman Empire under the Antonines. Describes the political and social situation in the 2nd c. AD, the consolidation of the pax romana and the shift of imperial interest to the provinces, the development of trade and a class of prudent and prosperous citizens, law-abiding or devoted citizens of Rome, to whom the proconsuls entrusted the local administration, of course with controlled responsibilities and a narrow circle of initiatives. Pausanias also belonged to this class. This prosperous class was able to travel along the single space of the empire, the second century, in which one could find several similarities with our time, is perhaps the first where the phenomenon of high tourism on a large scale is observed. N. Papachatzis, although he himself had to travel exhaustively for the commentary of Pausanias, observes, following Emerson's opinion: "The need for travel is felt mainly by people with unrestrained spiritual interests or without the disposition for self5 concentration and deepening that are necessary for any solid knowledge." Pausanias had relations with the literature of encyclopedic and strange knowledge, such as the books of Claudius Aelianus (ποικίλη ιστορία, περί ζώων) or the compilers historians (Diodorus of Sicily, Dion Cassius, Nikolaos of Damascus), as shown by many deviations in his work, following the model of Herodotus. But he set some higher research goals and as N. Papachatzis writes, the latest research is natural to count Pausanias more than them, because "it saved more hard-to-find information about isolated cities of Greece, about invisible rural cults, about worship customs, about local traditions and legends and about a multitude of elements of the socalled popular culture. For archaeological, religious and mythological research he will remain one of the most useful ancient writers, surviving not as a great intellect nor as a systematic or inductive teacher, but as a porter of valuable material”. Indeed, southern Greece, with the exception of some urban centers that Strabo describes as "συνεσταλμένα" already and the area of Athens, which - thanks to their glorious past - experienced the favor of "rulers and wealthy admirers", was in the 2nd c. a country that suffered from "ολιγανδρία" and characterized it as "ερημία", with many ruins. Despite this fact, Pausanias does not cross the ruins, but - and this was a valuable guide for archaeologists - "he pays attention to what falls into his interests: (writes Papachatzis) bronze statues once erected in sanctuaries and other public places no longer existed in his day, but there were pedestals, the inscriptions of which he pays attention to ". But also in famous places with thousands of votive offerings, such as the sanctuary of Delphi, Pausanias becomes selective for various reasons. “I mention below which of the votive offerings seemed to me more remarkable”, says at the beginning of the description of the Delphic sanctuary. “Athletes or competitors in music competitions, who were not particularly considered by most people, I think they do not deserve much attention. The athletes on the other hand who won a backwardness I mentioned in my speech about the Elis”. In ΗΛΙΑΚΑ and especially in the extensive description of Olympia, and unlike in the Acropolis of Athens, Pausanias tries to follow a plan. "From this point on, my speech will proceed to a record of statues and votive offerings; but I do not want to talk about all this mixed up. In the Acropolis of Athens and the statues and everything else that is there, all without exception are votive offerings. In Altis, however, some are votive offerings in honor of the gods; the statues, however, are also part of the prizes given to the winners. So I will talk about the statues later. Previously, I will deal with the votive offerings and I will mention the most valuable of them " (V,21,1). 6 “These are the parts of Peloponnese and the cities in the parts and in each city the most noteworthy to be mentioned”, writes Pausanias when he closes the circle of the Peloponnese with ΑΡΚΑΔΙΚΑ. N. Papachatzis considers this statement rather inaccurate. Closing the paragraph he wrote about the "περιηγηταί" Polemon and Pausanias in the 6th volume of the History of the Greek nation (p.423) he writes: "As for the other part of his interest, namely the sights of the cities (as he characterizes the most remarkable monuments of architecture and the visual arts), he seems to have lacked good taste. He is fascinated only by the size (he admires the Panathenaikon Stadium in Athens, because it has the "size of an entire mountain" and considers the statue of Zeus at Olympia "a worthy sight", because it was larger than all the other statues except the giants of Rome and Rhodes. But the subject of each of the plastic and paintings he describes is of particular concern to him, because it gives him the opportunity for mythological or historical deviations ". The great contribution of N. Papachatzis in the publication of Pausanias from an archaeological point of view, is certainly the detailed commentary on the monumental topography. Commentary on religious worship, although not as complete as here, nor from the point of view of an eminent expert in those aspects of religion that are of interest to the Pausanias, has existed in earlier editions. But archaeological commentary is the great virtue of the publication of N. Papachatzis. Papachatzis was not limited to library work, which was also complete. The bibliographic note attached at the end of each volume can rightly be a brief, reliable and as complete record as possible of the current state of the research for the specific place, site or monument described by Pausanias. In order to show the thoroughness of the commentary, it is enough to cite just one example. Pausanias begins the ATTIKA with Cape Sounion, where he mentions the port and temple of Athena Sounias, two phrases in all. N. Papachatzis dedicates in the commentary two extensive footnotes, a map, two topographic diagrams on different scales, a floor plan with the warships-houses and their section, an axonometric section of the temple of Poseidon, (which Pausanias does not mention, he mentions Athena Sounias only), an aerial photograph, a terrestrial view of the sanctuary, two photographs of works of art (the kouros of Sounion and the relief of the Αυτοστεφανούμενος) and finally a two-page panoramic restoration of the sanctuary of Poseidon and the temenos of Sounias Athena, with every possible scientific accuracy seen from the gulf of Sounion, from where the near sailing Pausanias would have seen them. All this with extensive and informative captions. And an extra half page bibliographic note at the end of the volume for area research. 7 As can be seen from the prologues of the volumes, N. Papachatzis' concern was to be aware of all the results of the archaeological research in the places described by Pausanias. To cite here only one example, I refer to ΦΩΚΙΚΑ (X, 20 ff), where Pausanias describes the invasion of the Gauls (279 BC) and the destruction of Kallion. The ΦΩΚΙΚΑ were published in 1981 and just recently the first preliminary report on the excavations of Kallion was published. However, in ΦΩΚΙΚΑ there are, in addition to the notes referring to the results of the excavations, a color map, a color aerial photograph, two colored photographs of monuments, two photographs of sealings and a photograph of the statue of the Kore, from the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore outside the walls, all with thorough commentary. From his thanks it seems that he was in constant contact with old and new Curators of Antiquities of these areas described by Pausanias, who all willingly provided their help, but also other archaeologists who dealt with issues that also concerned him in the study of Pausanias. N. Papachatzis characterizes the second edition of the ΚΟΡΙΝΘΙΑΚΑ-ΛΑΚΩΝΙΚΑ (1976) [the first one in 1963] as "completely new". For the second edition of the MΕΣΣΗΝΙΑΚΑ - ΗΛΙΑΚΑ (1979) [the first one in 1965] he says that "it complements the old one with the findings of the newer researches, with several new designs and especially with images ...". Regarding the second edition of the AΧΑΪΚΑ-AΡΚΑΔΙΚΑ (1980) he says that "it promotes the restoration of the ancient text and completes the commentary of the first edition, which I had made myself under adverse conditions in 1967; the illustration of the book is further enriched ... ". "From the beginning, this edition had a dual purpose," writes, “first to present clearly and to annotate what Pausanias himself had put in the center of his interest and then to complete the descriptive part with the findings of the archaeological research. The excavations illuminated the history of the places of worship and the monuments not only of the time of Antonines, but also of the older and the later one, until the end of antiquity. There are, on the other hand, architectural monuments or other works of art that Pausanias overtook, because they were out of his interests, as well as others that he did not see, because they had disappeared before his time. All of these revealed by recent excavations are mentioned here, to complete the descriptive part of the EΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ. The reference to these monuments found its place in the notes that accompany the translation, as well as in the commentary of the drawings and images that are sometimes thorough, but always carefully written, so that contains accurate and essential remarks. Thus the notes in the present edition, as well as the drawings and illustrations, together with their once thorough commentary, are a major part of the work and cannot be set aside. The maps made 8 especially for this edition, as well as the topographic drawings and representations and the multitude of color images, cost the project financially, but as the publisher wrote, prefacing ATTIKA, he willingly shouldered the cost to ensure the best possible result". Greece can be proud that thanks to N. Papachatzis and G. Christopoulos, whom he first thanked in 1981 "because with absolute honesty he kept the promise he made eight years ago", gave the whole world the most complete edition to date of Pausanias` ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ. And the city of Volos can be proud that this achievement was the work of a child of it, who never until the end of his life, and scientifically, especially with the issues of Thessalian religion, but also in terms of human contacts and friendships, broke off relations with it. I would like to end with two proposals - first to compile a complete, as possible, list of publications by N. Papachatzis and second to gather in one volume his articles dealing with issues of Thessalian cults, if not his entire collective works. 9 10