Which ancient Greek writer described the Parthenon in the 2nd century AD? Pausanias did. His surviving work, Description of Greece, is a travel and cultural guide to mainland Greece written during the Roman imperial period.
Pausanias discussed Athens and its sacred monuments, including the Acropolis and the Parthenon’s sculptures and religious associations. He was especially interested in temples, statues, myths, local traditions, and the historical stories attached to them. His account is one of the most important literary witnesses for ancient Greek art and architecture.
A common mix-up is to confuse Pausanias with Herodotus or Thucydides. Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC about the Persian Wars and related cultures, while Thucydides chronicled the Peloponnesian War. Strabo was also a geographer, but his Geography belongs mainly to the late 1st century BC and early 1st century AD. Pausanias lived much later, around AD 110–180, and wrote as a careful traveller rather than as a classical-era war historian.