Strabo - The Geography

The Geography

Strabo is most famous for his 17-volume work Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era.

Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its contemporary antiquity, a multitude of copies are found throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469. The first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice. Isaac Casaubon, classical scholar and editor of Greek texts, provided the first critical edition in 1587.

Although Strabo cited the antique Greek astronomers Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, acknowledging their astronomical and mathematical efforts towards geography, he claimed that a descriptive approach was more practical, such that his works were designed for statesmen who were more anthropologically than numerically concerned with the character of countries and regions.

As such, Geographica provides a valuable source of information on the ancient world, especially when this information is corroborated by other sources.

Strabo is pro-Roman politically but culturally reserves primacy to Greece.

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