Geography (front.preface.4)

Strabo was a great traveller, and apparently had no professional or other occupation. We may therefore conclude that his father left him a good property. Much of his geographical information is the result of personal observation. In a passage of his 2nd book[*] he thus speaks: Our descriptions shall consist of what we ourselves have observed in our travels by land and sea, and of what we conceive to be credible in the statements and writings of others; for in a westerly direction we have travelled from Armenia to that part of Tyrrhenia which is over against Sardinia; and southward, from the Euxine to the frontiers of Ethiopia. Of all the writers on geography, not one can be mentioned who has travelled over a wider extent of the countries described than we have. Some may have gone farther to the west, but then they have never been so far east as we have; again, others may have been farther east, but not so far west; and the same with respect to north and south. However, in the main, both we and they have availed ourselves of the reports of others, from which to describe the form, size, and other peculiarities of the country. He mentions having been in Egypt, the island Gyarus, Populonium near Elba, Comana in Cappadocia, Ephesus, Mylasa, Nysa, and Hierapolis in Phrygia. He visited Corinth, Argos, Athens, and Megara; but, on the whole, he does not appear to have seen more of Greece than in passing through it on his way to Brundusium, while proceeding to Rome. Populonium and Luna in Italy were the limit of his travels northwards. It is probable he obtained his information as to Spain, France, Britain, and Germany, while staying at Rome.

The first systematic writer on geography was Eratosthenes, who died at the age of 80, about B. C. 196. His work consisted of three books.

There is no ground for considering the Geography of Strabo an improved edition of that of Eratosthenes. Strabo’s work was intended for the information of persons in the higher departments of administration, and contains such geographical and historical information as those engaged in political employments

cannot dispense with. Consistently with this object he avoids giving minute descriptions, except where the place is of real interest, but supplies some account of the important political events that had occurred in various countries, and sketches of the great men who had flourished or laboured in them. It is a lively, well-written book, intended to be read, and forms a striking contrast to the Geography of Ptolemy. His language is simple, appropriate to the matter, without affectation, and mostly clear and intelligible, except in those passages where the text has been corrupted. Like many other Greeks, Strabo looked upon Homer as the depository of all knowledge, but he frequently labours to interpret the poet’s meaning in a manner highly uncritical. What Homer only partially knew or conjectured, Strabo has made the basis of his description, when he might have given an independent description, founded on the actual knowledge of his time: these observations apply especially to his books on Greece. He does not duly appreciate Herodotus; nor does he discriminate between the stories which Herodotus tells simply as stories he had heard, and the accounts he relates as derived from personal observation. He likewise rejects the evidence of Pytheas of Marseilles as to the northern regions of Europe, and on more than one occasion calls him a liar, although it is very certain that Pytheas coasted along the whole distance from Gadeira, now Cadiz, in Spain, to the river he calls Tanais, but which was probably the Elbe; however, from the extracts which have been preserved it seems that he did not give simply the results of his own observations, but added reports which he collected respecting distant countries, without always drawing a distinction between what he saw himself and what was derived from the report of others.