This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Strabo's Geography, completed in the early first century AD, is the primary source for the history of Greek geography. This Guide provides the first English analysis of and commentary on this long and difficult text, and serves as a companion to the author's The Geography of Strabo, the first English translation of the work in many years. It thoroughly analyzes each of the seventeen books and provides perhaps the most thorough bibliography as yet created for Strabo's work. Careful attention is paid to the historical and cultural data, the thousands of toponyms, and the many lost historical sources that are preserved only in the Geography. This volume guides readers through the challenges and complexities of the text, allowing an enhanced understanding of the numerous topics that Strabo covers, from the travels of Alexander and the history of the Mediterranean to science, religion, and cult.

This is the first modern edition and first English translation of one of the earliest and most important works in the history of geography, the third-century Geographika of Eratosthenes. In this work, which for the first time described the geography of the entire inhabited world as it was then known, Eratosthenes of Kyrene (ca. 285-205 BC) invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. A polymath who served as librarian at Alexandria and tutor to the future King Ptolemy IV, Eratosthenes created the terminology of geography, probably including the word geographia itself. Building on his previous work, in which he determined the size and shape of the earth, Eratosthenes in the Geographika created a grid of parallels and meridians that linked together every place in the world: for the first time one could figure out the relationship and distance between remote localities, such as northwest Africa and the Caspian Sea. The Geographika also identified some four hundred places, more than ever before, from Thoule (probably Iceland) to Taprobane (Sri Lanka), and from well down the coast of Africa to Central Asia. This is the first collation of the more than 150 fragments of the Geographika in more than a century. Each fragment is accompanied by an English translation, a summary, and commentary. Duane W. Roller provides a rich background, including a history of the text and its reception, a biography of Eratosthenes, and a comprehensive account of ancient Greek geographical thought and of Eratosthenes' pioneering contribution to it. This edition also includes maps that show all of the known places named in the Geographika, appendixes, a bibliography, and indexes.

The Routledge Companion to Strabo explores the works of Strabo of Amasia (c. 64 BCE – c. CE 24), a Greek author writing at the prime of Roman expansion and political empowerment. While his earlier historiographical composition is almost entirely lost, his major opus of the Geography includes an encyclopaedic look at the entire world known at the time: numerous ethnographic, topographic, historical, mythological, botanical, and zoological details, and much more. This volume offers various insights to the literary and historical context of the man and his world. The Companion, in twenty-eight chapters written by an international group of scholars, examines several aspects of Strabo’s personality, the political and scholarly environment in which he was active, his choices as an author, and his ideas of history and geography. This selection of ongoing Strabonian studies is an invaluable resource not just for students and scholars of Strabo himself, but also for anyone interested in ancient geography and in the world of the early Roman Empire.

Strabo of Amasia, a Greek geographer of the Augusto-Tiberian period, observed the Roman world of his time. He collected his observations in his magnum opus, the Geography, which he described as a 'Kolossourgia', a colossal statue of a work. This term reflects not only the work's size in seventeen books, but also its multi-faceted nature, composed of many different elements like the detailing on a statue. In this 2005 volume an international team of Strabo scholars explores those details, discussing the cultural, political, historical and geographical questions addressed in the Geography. The collection offers a number of different approaches to the study of Strabo, from traditional literary and historical perspectives to newer material and feminist readings. These diverse themes and approaches inform each other to provide a wide-ranging exploration of Strabo's work, making the book essential reading for students of ancient history and ancient geography.

This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies. Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of Discovery Provides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient India Explores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials

Strabo of Amasia offers an intellectual biography of Strabo, a Greek man of letters, set against the political and cultural background of Augustan Rome. It offers the first full-scale interpretation of the man and his life in English. It emphasises the place and importance of Strabo's Geography and of geography itself within these intellectual circles. It argues for a deeper understanding of the fusion of Greek and Roman elements in the culture of the Roman Empire. Though he wrote in Greek, Strabo must be regarded as an 'Augustan' writer like Virgil or Livy.

Ptolemy's Geography is the only book on cartography to have survived from the classical period and one of the most influential scientific works of all time. Written in the second century AD, for more than fifteen centuries it was the most detailed topography of Europe and Asia available and the best reference on how to gather data and draw maps. Ptolemy championed the use of astronomical observation and applied mathematics in determining geographical locations. But more importantly, he introduced the practice of writing down coordinates of latitude and longitude for every feature drawn on a world map, so that someone else possessing only the text of the Geography could reproduce Ptolemy's map at any time, in whole or in part, at any scale. Here Berggren and Jones render an exemplary translation of the Geography and provide a thorough introduction, which treats the historical and technical background of Ptolemy's work, the contents of the Geography, and the later history of the work.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 edition. Excerpt: ...Aimti. " And JEglele Anaphe, close to the Lacedcemonian Thera; " and in another, he mentions Thera only, "Mother of my country, celebrated for its fine breed of horses." Thera is a long island, about 200 stadia in circumference. It lies opposite to the island Dia,1 towards the Cnossian Hera-cleium. It is distant about 700 stadia from Crete. Near it are Anaphe and Therasia.2 The little island los3 is distant from the latter about 100 stadia. Here according to some authors the poet Homer was buried.4 In going from los towards the west are Sicenus5 and Lagusa,6 and Pholegandrus, ' which Aratus calls the iron island, on account of its rocks. Near these islands is Cimolus,8 whence is obtained the Cimo-lian earth. From Cimolus Siphnus9 is visible. To this island is applied the proverb, " a Siphnian bone (astragalus)," on account of its insignificance. Still nearer, both to Cimolus and Crete, is Melos,10 more considerable than these. It is distant from the Hermionic promontory, the ScyllsBum,11 700 stadia, and nearly as many from the Dictynngean promontory. The Athenians formerly despatched an army to Melos,12 and put to death the inhabitants from youth upwards. These islands are situated in the Cretan sea. Delos,13 the Cyclades about it, and the Sporades adjacent to these, belong rather to the JEgasan sea. To the Sporades also are to be referred the islands about Crete, which I have already mentioned. 2. The city of Delos is in a plain. Delos contains the temple of Apollo, and the Latoum, or temple of Latona. The Cynthus,14 a naked and rugged mountain, overhangs the city. 1 Standia. Therasia, on the west of Santorino. ' Nio. According to Herodotus, in the Life of Homer. 5 Sikino, anciently CEnoe. Pliny iv. 12. Cardiodissa, or Cardiana. '...

An introduction to the earliest ideas of geography in antiquity and how much knowledge there was of the physical world.