Greg Nagy
Last updated at
July 10, 2020, 6:46 p.m.
{"blocks":[{"key":"dv042","text":"The extreme cruelty of this spectacle at Patras, where sacrificial animals are forcibly burned alive, seems to shock Pausanias. I ask myself whether he may have had in mind here the kind of cruelty that was ordinarily linked with spectacles organized for the entertainment of romanized populations. I have in mind here the kinds of spectacles that focused on the killing of wild beasts. It may be relevant that Pausanias at 7.18.7 observes that the population of Patras had been in fact thoroughly romanized by the Emperor Augustus, and this observation immediately precedes the narrative that I am analyzing here, which starts at 7.18.8.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}}],"entityMap":{}}