Note 417 — Chapter II · GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA.

At the beginning of his description of Elis (V, 1.2), Pausanias says that 217 years had passed since the restoration of Corinth. As that event fell in 44 B. C., he was writing his fifth book in 174 A. D., i. e., in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. With this date other chronological references in his work agree. That the fifth book was written before the sixth is deduced from a comparison of V, 14.6 with VI, 22.8 f. Though the sixth book, therefore, can not have been composed earlier than 174 A. D., it may, of course, have been written much later. On the dates of the various books, see Frazer, I, pp. xv f. On the great importance of Pausanias for the whole history of Greek art, see C. Robert, Pausanias als Schriftsteller, 1909, p. 1.