Strabo of Amasia's Geography is a description of the inhabited world in seventeen books, written in Greek under Augustus and Tiberius. Strabo says it follows his earlier historical work, now lost, and writes for men in public life, for whom he holds geography useful. He draws on Homer, whom he treats as the first geographer, on Eratosthenes, Polybius, Posidonius, Artemidorus and many others, and on his own travels.
Books I and II are an introduction: geography as a part of philosophy, a defence of Homer's knowledge, and a long examination of Eratosthenes' map, Hipparchus' objections and Posidonius on zones. The survey of regions follows. Books III to X cover Europe: Iberia, Gaul, Britain and the Alps, Italy and Sicily, the lands north of the Danube with Illyria, Macedonia and Thrace, and Greece with its islands. Books XI to XVI cover Asia, from the Tanais and the Caucasus through Asia Minor, Strabo's own Pontus among it, to India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Judaea and Arabia. Book XVII covers Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya, and closes with Augustus' division of the provinces.
The work survives nearly complete in medieval manuscripts. The end of Book VII is lost, and the text there closes with excerpts from it.
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
Book I opens with a later table of contents to the whole work. Geography, Strabo argues, is a branch of philosophy, and Homer was its first master. He defends the poet's knowledge of the Ocean, the Ethiopians and the far coasts against Eratosthenes, citing Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound, Euripides' Phaethon and Ephorus, and gathers evidence that land and sea have changed places. The book ends on Eratosthenes' view that people should be judged by merit, not as Greeks or barbarians.
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Βʹ Book II
Eratosthenes' map of the inhabited world is examined closely: the parallel drawn from the Pillars of Heracles through Rhodes and along the Taurus to India, and Hipparchus' objections to it. Strabo then weighs Posidonius on zones and on the bounds of the continents, holding that customs come from habit, not climate. He ends with his sketch of the world and its bands of latitude, out to the polar lands where the shadow circles the gnomon and no one can live.
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Γʹ Book III
Iberia, shaped like an ox-hide stretched from west to east, opens the survey of the regions. Strabo moves from rich Turdetania and the coast beyond the Pillars to Lusitania and the rugged north, then along the Mediterranean shore past Malaca and the Phoenician foundation of Abdera to the Pyrenees. The islands follow, ending with the Cassiterides, whose tin trade the Phoenicians of Gades kept secret until the Romans learned the route and Publius Crassus opened it to all.
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Δʹ Book IV
Gaul beyond the Alps, which earlier writers divided among Aquitani, Celts and Belgae, is described river by river: the Rhône, Loire, Seine and Rhine, the trade carried on them, Massalia and Narbo, and the coast where Caesar built his ships for Britain. Britain, Ierne and Thule follow, then the peoples of the Alps. The book closes with Polybius' four passes over the mountains, one of them Hannibal's, and the three great lakes that drain into the Po.
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Εʹ Book V
Italy begins at the foot of the Alps, and Strabo explains how the name spread there from the old Oenotria. He covers the Po plain and its Gauls and Veneti, Liguria, Etruria, Umbria and the Sabines, then Latium and Rome: Romulus, the seizure of the Sabine women, Titus Tatius and Numa, and the older tale of Evander receiving Heracles. Campania follows, and the book ends at the Silaris with the Picentes, made letter-carriers for siding with Hannibal.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Strabo enters southern Italy at the temple of Argive Hera that Jason founded at the mouth of the Silaris. He passes Poseidonia and Elea, home of Parmenides and Zeno, through Bruttium to Sicily, where he rejects the story that the Alpheus flows under the sea to the spring of Arethusa. Tarentum, Iapygia and Apulia follow. The book closes with Rome's rise to rule the world and praise of the peace kept by Augustus and Tiberius.
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Ζʹ Book VII
East of the Rhine, Strabo turns to the Germans, Cimbri, Getae and Bastarnae north of the Danube, out to the Black Sea, the Borysthenes and the Crimea; then Illyria, Pannonia and the Dalmatian coast, Epirus with Dodona, Macedonia and Thrace. Along the way are Epidamnus, now Dyrrachium, and Apollonia, with the burning rock and asphalt springs that Posidonius described. The end of the book is lost; the text closes with the excerpts that preserve it, on the Hellespont and Thrace.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
Greece proper begins here, with Homer as its first and hardest witness, whose poetry needs critical reading, and the book surveys the Peloponnese: Elis and Olympia, the rival Pylos claims, Messenia, Laconia, the Argolid, Corinth, Sicyon, Achaea and Arcadia. Messene under Ithome is compared with Corinth under its citadel. It ends with Artemidorus' correction of Polybius' distance from Cape Malea to the Danube, and Ephorus' list of founders after the return of the Heracleidae.
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Θʹ Book IX
Eudoxus' account of the coast between Sunium and the Isthmus opens the book on Megara, Attica and Athens, Boeotia, Phocis and Locris, and Thessaly. At its centre is Delphi on the southern face of Parnassus, with Cirrha, Crisa and their plain below. The book closes with the older names of Thessaly, Pyrrhaea from Deucalion's wife and Haemonia from Haemon, and the stories behind them.
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Ιʹ Book X
Euboea, long and narrow beside the mainland, comes first, with its Abantes and the strait at Chalcis; then Aetolia and Acarnania, Ithaca and Cephallenia. A long digression on the Curetes turns into an essay on religious ecstasy, secret rites and music, the name Plato and the Pythagoreans gave to philosophy. Crete follows, and the book closes among the Cyclades and Sporades, with the islands named in Homer's catalogue and the honey of Calymna.
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ΙΑʹ Book XI
Asia, divided by the Taurus into a northern and a southern half, begins at the Tanais. This book covers the north: Lake Maeotis, the Caucasus and its Albanians and Iberians, the Caspian, the Scythian nomads and the Sacae, Hyrcania, Parthia, Bactria, Media and Armenia. It explains the Sacaean festival at Zela and Cyrus' stratagem against the Sacae, and ends with the Armenian cult of Anaitis, to whom noble families dedicated their daughters.
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ΙΒʹ Book XII
Cappadocia, with its ten generalships, opens a book that goes on through Pontus, Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, Lycaonia, Pisidia, Mysia and Phrygia. In Pontus, Strabo's homeland, he turns to his own family, the Dorylaus who was his mother's great-grandfather, and to the temple estates of Men Pharnaku at Ameria and of Comana. The book ends in Phrygia with the Herophilean medical school founded by Zeuxis, the vanished Berecyntes and Aeschylus' confusion of Ida and Sipylus in his Niobe.
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ΙΓʹ Book XIII
The Troad takes most of this book, and Strabo asks the reader's patience for its length: so many peoples settled it, and Homer and the later writers disagree. He follows the coast from the Aesepus to the Hellespont, Ilium and Tenedos, the mountain where Paris judged the goddesses, and Scepsis. Aeolis, Lesbos, Pergamum and Lydia follow, and the book ends at Cibyra, whose people spoke four languages, and the Milyas.
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ΙΔʹ Book XIV
This book completes the tour of Asia Minor with Ionia, Caria and the coast beyond the Taurus. Androclus, son of Codrus, leads the Ionian migration and founds Ephesus; Neleus of Pylos founds Miletus. Caria brings Rhodes, then Mylasa, built under its marble quarry, and the shrine of Zeus at Labraunda; Lycia, Pamphylia and Cilicia with its pirates follow. The book ends in Cyprus, annexed by Cato once Clodius, whose ransom from the pirates its king had stinted, became tribune.
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ΙΕʹ Book XV
India, which few Greeks had seen and whose writers contradict one another, fills most of this book. Strabo weighs Alexander's companions and Megasthenes, rejects the tales of mouthless men at the sources of the Ganges and men who sleep in their own ears, and describes the Indian philosophers. Ariana and Persia follow, with Persian customs, and the book ends with the line of Persian kings from Cyrus to Alexander, and the Persians' subjection to the Parthians.
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ΙϚʹ Book XVI
Assyria, Babylon and Nineveh, with Ninus and Semiramis, open the book; Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia and Judaea follow. Strabo reports Moses' teaching that the divine cannot be shaped in an image, which drew his followers to the site of Jerusalem. He then crosses Arabia and the coasts of the Red Sea, and ends with the Aramaeans, the changes foreign names undergo in Greek, and Alexander's plan to make Arabia his royal seat.
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ΙΖʹ Book XVII
Strabo follows the Nile, first through Eratosthenes' account of its course and then through Egypt and Ethiopia, and ends with Libya, the last part of the world. He describes Alexandria, the Delta, Memphis, Abydos and Thebes, the three oases and the oracle of Ammon, neglected by the Romans of his day. After Ethiopia he traces the coast of Libya from Maurusia to Cyrene, and closes the whole work with Augustus' division of the provinces between the Roman people and Caesar.