Aspects of Cultural Memory in the Imperial Age. On some Local Arcadian Traditions in Plutarch, Pliny and Pausanias

This paper intends to analyse an extract from the Quaestiones Graecae concerning a significant pattern of local traditions of Arkadia, in order to ascertain Plutarch’s approach to the historical and cultural memory of the region and to compare it with that of Pausanias, who in the Antonine age devoted to Arkadia Book 8 of his Description of Greece, in the same effort to recover and enhance a memory at risk of oblivion. The analysis allows us to both reflect on their outlooks in comparison to the derisory superficiality of Pliny the Elder about one of the traditions treated, and to observe the differences between Plutarch’s exegetical attitude and that of the Periegetes.