Geography (front.preface.12)

In the 16th book, he describes the westerly half of south Asia, viz. Assyria with Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, the coast of Ethiopia, and lastly, Arabia. For the three first countries (the old Assyrian kingdom), his chief authorities are, besides some of Alexander’s historians, Eratosthenes, Poseidonius, and Herodotus; for the remainder he had, in addition to the same writers, Artemidorus, and probably also Nicolaus of Damascus. The account of Moses and the Jews, Heeren surmises, comes from Poseidonius, but it probably proceeds from oral communication had in Egypt; of these countries our author could describe nothing as an eye-witness, except the northwest of Syria. The accounts of Arabia, the Indian and the Red Seas, are from Agatharchides; and much that he describes of Arabia was obtained from his friends, Aelius Gallus and the Stoic, Athenodorus.

The 17th book concludes the work with the description of Egypt, Ethiopia, and the north coast of Africa. Strabo had travelled through the whole of Egypt, as far as Syene and Philae, and writes with the decided tone of an eye-witness. Much verbal information, also, he collected at Alexandria. His most important written authorities are, for the Nile, Eratosthenes (who borrowed from Aristotle), Eudoxus, and Aristo. For the most remarkable events of Egyptian history, he had Polybius, and for later times probably Poseidonius, besides vivâ voce accounts.

For the oracle at Ammon, he had the historians of Alexander; for Ethiopia, the accounts of Petronius, who had carried on war there, Agatharchides, and Herodotus. Of Libya or Africa Proper he had nothing new or authentic to say. Besides Eratosthenes, Artemidorus, and Poseidonius, his chief authorities, he had Iphicrates, who wrote on the plants and animals of Libya. The whole concludes with a short notice of the Roman Empire.

The dates at which particular books were written, as attempted to be given by Groskurd and Coraÿ, must be received with caution.

In book iv. c. vi. § 9, Strabo says that the Carni and Taurisci