Strabo

Strabo, an ancient geographer, born at Amasia in Pontus, probably about 64 B.C., although some authorities make it ten years later. By the mother's side he was of Greek descent, and also closely connected with the Mithridatidae; of his father's family nothing is known. How the name Strabo ('squint-eyed') must have originated is obvious, but whether any of the family were so called before him is uncertain. Strabo studied under the grammarian Tyrannio at Rome, under Aristodemus at Nysa in Caria, and under the philosopher Xenarchus either at Rome or at Alexandria. He does not appear to have followed any calling, but to have spent his life in travel and study, from which it may safely be inferred that he was well off. He was at Corinth in 29 B.C., ascended the Nile with Elinus Gallus in 24, and seems to have been settled at Rome after 14 A.D., but all we know of the date of his death is that it was after 21 A.D. Of Strabo's great historical work in forty-seven books—from the fifth a continuation to his own time of Polybius—we have only a few fragments; but his Geographica in seventeen books has come down to us almost complete. It is a work of great value in those parts especially which record the results of his own extensive observation. 'Westwards,' he says in a passage in the second book, 'I have travelled from Armenia to the parts of Tyrrhenia adjacent to Sardinia; towards the south, from the Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia. And perhaps there is not one among those who have written geographies who has visited more places than I have between these limits.' Yet it must not be supposed that he describes with equal accuracy or fullness all the countries of whose geography he treats. Some he seems to have visited hurriedly, or in passing elsewhere; others he knows like a native. For example, his accounts of Greece, particularly the Peloponnese, are meagre in the extreme, and of many of the obscurer regions he writes chiefly from hearsay. He makes copious use of his predecessors Eratosthenes, Artemidorus, Polybius, Posidonius, Aristotle, Theopompus, Thucydides, Aristobulus, and many other writers now lost to us, but he strangely depreciates the authority of Herodotus, and quotes few Roman writers except Fabius Pictor and Julius Cæsar. Of the seventeen books of the Geography books i.-ii. contain a criticism of former geographers, and the mathematical part of physical geography—the poorest portion of the work; book iii. is devoted to Spain; iv. to Gaul, Britain, and Ireland; v. and vi. to Italy; vii. to the north and east of Europe as far as the Danube; viii.-x. to Greece; xi.-xvi. to Asia; xvii. to Africa. The style is pure and simple. The editio princeps of Strabo appeared at Venice in 1516. Good editions are those by Müller and Dübner (1853-56) and Meineke (1852-53). See Marcel Dubois, Examen de la Géographie de Strabo (1891).