This collection investigates how the Periegesis of Pausanias serves as a critical primary source for understanding the cultural, religious, and political landscape of Greece under Roman rule. The editors, including Susan E. Alcock and John F. Cherry, assemble a multidisciplinary team of scholars to analyze the text not merely as a travelogue, but as a complex artifact of memory and identity. By situating Pausanias within the second-century AD context, the contributors argue that his descriptions reflect the tensions between a glorious Hellenic past and the contemporary reality of Roman hegemony.

Scholars and classicists frequently cite this volume as a foundational text for those studying the intersection of literature and archaeology in the Roman period. Experts highlight the book's success in moving beyond traditional philological approaches to offer a more nuanced, material-culture-focused reading of Pausanias.