Pausanias is a fairly well-known figure in classical antiquity as he was the author of the 'Description of Greece', which performed the dual function of being a guidebook and a literary travelogue. Pausanias is sometimes referred to as having written the first ever guidebook for tourists, but this is somewhat uncharitable - although often not meant to be pejorative - given that the value of Pausanias' work to history has been incalculable as he acts as a vital check on the geographic assertions of Strabo and Herodotus among others.
What is less known about Pausanias is that he - like Pomponius Mela - (1) mentions the jews and Palestine in passing on several occasions. Unlike his fellow Greek geographer Strabo: Pausanias doesn't make any explicit judgements about the jews, but rather makes mention of where they live and where they do not live. This is important as the Greek and Roman accounts of the area of the so-called 'jewish homeland' are very different from the claims advanced by jews about their historical extent today.
Also, Pausanias - like Pomponius Mela - has a view of the jews which stands in stark contradiction to jewish self-descriptions both historically and currently. This isn't to contradict my earlier point about Pausanias not having anything negative to say about the jews, but rather what is interesting is what he has to say about where their territories were and the necessary implication - by the lack of spending much time on them in comparison to their neighbours and cousins the Phoenicians and Syrians - that the 'jewish homeland' in classical antiquity was hardly the centre of culture, religious learning and economic progress that modern jewish writers have tried to make out.
However, to make it very clear and prevent distortion by apologists for the modern state of Israel: we should reproduce what Pausanias says.
To wit:
'Hard by is a sanctuary of the Heavenly Aphrodite; the first men to establish her cult were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians who live at Ascalon in Palestine; the Phoenicians taught her worship to the people of Cythera.' (2)
Compare this to:
'These are the Athenian eponymoi who belong to the ancients. And of later date than these they have tribes named after the following, Attalus the Mysian and Ptolemy the Egyptian, and within my own time the emperor Hadrian, who was extremely religious in the respect he paid to the deity and contributed very much to the happiness of his various subjects. He never voluntarily entered upon a war, but he reduced the Hebrews beyond Syria, who had rebelled.' (3)
Then compare again to what Pomponius Mela has to say about the extent of Palestine:
'In Palestine, however, is Gaza, a mighty and very well fortified city. This is why the Persians call it their treasury (and from that fact comes the name): when Cambyses headed for Egypt under arms, he had brought here both riches and the money for war. Ascalon is no less important a city.' (4)
Now we should note that Pomponius Mela agrees with Pausanias here in stating that Ashkelon (in the south of what is now Israel) is part of a territorial entity known as Palestine and that - as Pomponius Mela suggests - this territory runs up the seacoast of what is now Israel. We can see this in what Pausanias says about the jews (i.e., the 'Hebrews') in so far as the jews are from 'beyond Syria' and are only mentioned because they had rebelled against Roman rule and were crushed by the Emperor Hadrian.
Further we are told that the inhabitants of Palestine are not jews but rather are Phoenicians or put more simply: the polytheistic cousins of the jews. This clearly tells us the jews were not in Ashkelon and that the Phoenicians - who are usually located as being in the north in modern Syria and Lebanon - were resident across the entire seaboard of modern Israel.
Pausanias and Pomponius Mela also agree on this in relation to the port city of Jaffa - now part of the Israeli capital Tel Aviv - when the former states that:
'Red water, in colour like blood, is found in the land of the Hebrews near the city of Joppa.' (5)
This agrees with Pomponius Mela who tells us that:
'Iope [Tel Aviv/Jaffa] was founded, as they tell it, before the flood. Iope [Tel Aviv/Jaffa] is where the locals claim that Cepheus was king, based on the proof that particular old altars -altars with the greatest taboo – continue to bear an inscription of that man and his brother Phineus.' (6)
We should be clear here about what exactly Pausanias is saying, and I have used the Loeb translation of the text in order for there to be little room for linguistic dispute as to the meaning of his sentence. Pausanias clearly says that Joppa (i.e., Jaffa) is near the land of the Hebrews, but not in the land of the Hebrews. Jewish writers frequently try to claim that the implication of Pausanias' words is that Jaffa/Tel Aviv belonged to the jews, but this is clearly not the case given the wording.
We should also note that Pomponius Mela's agreement with Pausanias and comment that there are many old (pagan) altars in Jaffa (which haven't been destroyed as idolatrous by the jews) strongly suggests that the majority of the inhabitants of Jaffa at the time were not jewish, but rather were polytheists with the most likely religious and cultural background being that of the Phoenicians. This is further confirmed when we but stop to ask why Pausanias would say that the Phoenicians ruled Ashkelon and Lebanon, but not the territory in-between without passing comment as to why this geographical oddity had occurred.
That he didn't comment about this adds yet another nail to the coffin of the claim that Pausanias suggested that the area around Jaffa belonged to the jews.
Pausanias does however give us some geographical clues as to where the jews lived at the time when he tells us that:
'And in the land of the Hebrews, as I can myself bear witness, the river Jordan passes through a lake called Tiberias, and then, entering another lake called the Dead Sea, it disappears in it.' (7)
This clearly locates the 'jewish homeland' in the relatively arid and unwelcoming interior of Israel around Jerusalem and the Jordan valley as opposed to abutting the Mediterranean Sea. This is further pointed to by another remark by Pausanias when he states that:
'The Hebrews have a grave, that of Helen, a native woman, in the city of Jerusalem, which the Roman Emperor razed to the ground. There is a contrivance in the grave whereby the door, which like all the grave is of stone, does not open until the year brings back the same day and the same hour. Then the mechanism, unaided, opens the door, which, after a short interval, shuts itself. This happens at that time, but should you at any other try to open the door you cannot do so; force will not open it, but only break it down.' (8)
In the above we can see that the Pausanias is locating the jews in the city of Jerusalem whilst remarking on the contraption in Helen's tomb.
We should additionally point out that Pausanias cannot be said to be claiming the jews are clever engineers here (as this paragraph has sometimes been used to claim): simply because he doesn't tell us - and probably didn't know - who had constructed this contraption, which seems unlikely to be jewish in origin due to the lack of other examples of such work in the jewish world but large numbers by comparison in the Greek world.
The last nail in the coffin of the jewish claims about having territory abutting the Mediterranean Sea is found in Pausanias' statement that:
'Later than Demo there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian.' (9)
This confirms the earlier statement by Pausanias that the jews were near the city of Joppa, but did not own it: given that Pausanias clearly tells us that the jews were 'above Palestine' but what is implicit in that statement (and should be as a qualifier to it) is that Palestine - as then understood - extended some way back from the sea per Pomponius Mela's statements about its extent. (10)
So, what does this mean for us?
Very simply it means that modern day Israel has no historic right to a large portion of its territory and that contrary to what jewish writers like to assert: there was a territorial entity known as Palestine separate from Judea extant for a significant amount of time in the classical world.
We should further point out that no-where does Pausanias mention any particular achievements of the jews and only ever mentions the achievements of others that are located in Judea. This tells us by implication that the jews were not the 'culture bearers' that jewish writers - following the lead of Max Radin - have long claimed, (11) but rather suggests that the jews were an insignificant and barbarous people who now have a historical version of the 'little man' syndrome in their desire to make their ancestors far more important than they actually were.
References
(1) This has been discussed in the following article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/pomponius-mela-palestine-judea-and
(2) Paus. 1:14.7
(3) Ibid. 1:5.5
(4) Frank Romer, 1998, 'Pomponius Mela's Description of the World', 1st Edition, The University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, p. 53
(5) Paus. 4:35.9
(6) Romer, Op. Cit., p. 53
(7) Paus. 5:7.4
(8) Ibid. 8:16.5
(9) Ibid. 10:12.9
(10) Romer, Op. Cit., pp. 52-53
(11) Max Radin, 1916, 'Jews among Greeks and Romans', 1st Edition, Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia, p. 14