page_title: Strabo
section_title: Geographica
hierarchical_section_title: Strabo / Geographica
caption_attribution_description: English: An illustration from the Encyclopaedia Biblica, a 1903 publication which is now in the public domain. Map 1 for article "Geography". Map of the world, by Strabo
context_page_description: Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
context_section_description: Strabo is best known for his work Geographica ("Geography"), which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime.
  Although the Geographica was rarely utilized by contemporary writers, a multitude of copies survived 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 classical Greek astronomers Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, acknowledging their astronomical and mathematical efforts covering 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 of his day, especially when this information is corroborated by other sources. He travelled extensively, as he says: "Westward I have journeyed to the parts of Etruria opposite Sardinia; towards the south from the Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia; and perhaps not one of those who have written geographies has visited more places than I have between those limits." 
  It is not known when he wrote Geographica, but he spent much time in the famous library in Alexandria taking notes from "the works of his predecessors". A first edition was published in 7 BC and a final edition no later than 23 AD, in what may have been the last year of Strabo's life. It took some time for Geographica to be recognized by scholars and for Geographica to become a standard. In his last book of Geographica, he wrote quite extensively about the thriving port city of Alexandria suggesting a highly developed local economy at that time.
  Strabo also describes the city of Alexandria noting that there were many beautiful public parks and the city was reticulated with streets wide enough for chariots and horsemen. "Two of these are exceeding broad, over a plethron in breadth, and cut one another at right angles ... All the buildings are connected one with another, and these also with what are beyond it." 
  Lawrence Kim observes that Strabo is  "... pro-Roman throughout the Geography. But while he acknowledges and even praises Roman ascendancy in the political and military sphere, he also makes a significant effort to establish Greek primacy over Rome in other contexts."
  In Europe, Strabo was the first to connect the Danube -- Danouios and the Istros --with the change of names occurring at "the cataracts," the modern Iron Gates on the Romanian/Serbian border.
  In India, a country he never visited, Strabo described small flying reptiles that were long with a snake-like body and bat-like wings, winged scorpions, and other mythical creatures along with those that were factual. Other historians, such as Herodotus, Aristotle, and Flavius Josephus, mentioned similar creatures.
caption: Map of the world according to Strabo.
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