BOOKS
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One of these sophisticates, the traveler Pausanias, whose
Guide to
Greece
provides much important information about cult practice, admits
that he was at first put off by the old story of how the god Cronus de–
voured his children so that a son greater than himself could not be born,
and of how he was tricked by his wife Rhea, who substituted a colt for
Poseidon and a stone for Zeus.
When I began this work I used to look on these Greek stories as little
better than foolishness; but now that I have got as far as Arcadia my
opinion about them is this: I believe that the Greeks who were ac–
counted wise spoke of old in riddles and not straight out; and ac–
cordingly I conjecture that this story about Cronus is a bit of Greek
philosophy. In matters about religion
I
will follow tradition.
(viii.8.3, tr.
C.
Habicht)
Veyne cites this passage as evidence that Pausanias was making "a
tardy confession," that "shows in retrospect that Pausanias did not believe
a word of the innumerable unlikely legends that he had calmly put forth
in the preceding six hundred pages." Instead of trying to show that Pau–
sanias was inconsistent or had experienced some sort of religious con–
version, it makes better sense to compare him to another writer of the
same period, for instance, Philostratus. Veyne cites Philostratus's
Heroicus
as further evidence that the Greeks always believed in heroes; it is a work
difficult to interpret, he claims, "for as is often the case in the Second
Sophistic, its style, fantasy, and antiquarian and patriotic ideology are
blended with contemporary reality." But after making this impressive
statement, Veyne (though without explicitly saying so) proceeds to take
the work as evidence of literal belief in heroes, even to the point of
saying that the sophisticated interlocutor in the dialogue is Philostratus
himself Surely it is possible to be more precise.
In the
Heroicus
Philostratus displays a dismissive yet respectful anti–
quarianism like that of Pausanias. In this work a Phoenician seafarer from
the region between Sidon and Tyre encounters a peasant vine-grower; he
learns from the peasant that the countryside is under the protection of
the Trojan hero Protesilaus, whom he has seen along with other heroes
of the Trojan War. The Phoenician is able to learn from the peasant
many new details about the battle. Philostratus's dialogue shows that the
myths, at least in later antiquity, could be understood at several levels si–
multaneously, depending upon one's degree of sophistication. The edu–
cated man need not believe that Protesilaus's attitude can affect the
growth of his vines, but he can enjoy the aspect of myth that is impor-
