Editing Strabo (section)

==Work==
===''Geographica''===
{{too long|section|date=March 2025}}
{{Main|Geographica}}
[[File:C+B-Geography-Map1-StrabosMap.PNG|thumb|upright=1.6|Map of the world according to Strabo]]

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.<ref name="StraboGeogVIII"/>

[[File:Map of Europe according to Strabo.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|Map of Europe according to Strabo]]

Although the ''Geographica'' was rarely used 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 [[Editio princeps|first printed edition]] was published in 1516 in [[Venice]].<ref>Geographie, Band 1, Strabo, S.17, Strabo, Karl Kärcher, Gottlieb Lukas Friedrich Tafel, Christian Nathanael Osiander, Gustav Schwab, Verlag Metzler, 1831.</ref> [[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.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first=Daniela|editor-last=Dueck|title=The Routledge Companion to Strabo|publisher=Routledge|location=Abingdon|year=2017|isbn=978-1-31744-586-9|page=2}}</ref>

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]] [Black Sea] 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."<ref>{{Cite web |title=LacusCurtius • Strabo's Geography — Book II Chapter 5 (§§ 1‑17) |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/2E1*.html#5.11 |access-date=2022-03-28 |website=penelope.uchicago.edu}}</ref>

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&nbsp;BC and a final edition no later than 23&nbsp;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 to become a standard.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.enotes.com/topics/strabo/critical-essays|title=Strabo Critical Essays - eNotes.com|website=eNotes}}</ref> 

Alexandria itself features extensively in the last book of ''Geographica'', which describes it as a thriving port city with a highly developed local economy.<ref>Strabo, Geography 17.1.6, 7, 8, 13; translated by Brent Shaw. Attained from: E.A. Pollard, C. Rosenberg, and R.L. Tignor, et al. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, Concise, Volume One: Beginnings through the Fifteenth Century (W.W. Norton, 2015) Pg. 228</ref> Strabo notes the city's many beautiful public parks, and its network of 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."<ref name="Davis1912">{{cite book|last=Davis|first=William Stearns |author-link=William Stearns Davis|title=Reading in Ancient History |url=https://archive.org/stream/readingsinancie01davigoog#page/n346/search/alexandria|volume=I: Greece and the East|year=1912|publisher=Allyn and Bacon|location=Boston|pages=325–329}}</ref>

Lawrence Kim observes that Strabo is<ref name="Kim2010">{{cite book|last=Kim|first=Lawrence |title=Homer between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K7Bg3zRom6QC&pg=PA83|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-49024-5|page=83}}</ref> "... 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]] (which he called Danouios) and the Istros – with the change of names occurring at "the cataracts," the modern [[Iron Gates]] on the Romanian/Serbian border.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YsqJDwAAQBAJ&q=Serbs+in+Strabo&pg=PA163|title = Ancient Geography: The Discovery of the World in Classical Greece and Rome|isbn = 9780857725660|last1 = Roller|first1 = Duane W.|date = 27 August 2015| publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref>

In [[India]], a country he never visited, Strabo described small flying reptiles that were long with snake-like bodies and bat-like wings (this description matches the Indian flying lizard ''[[Draco dussumieri]]''), winged scorpions, and other mythical creatures along with those that were actually factual.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ibiblio.org/britishraj/Jackson9/chapter01.html|title = Chapter 1 – Account of India by the Greek Writer Strabo}}</ref> Other historians, such as [[Herodotus]], [[Aristotle]], and [[Josephus|Flavius Josephus]], mentioned similar creatures.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}}

===Geology===
[[Charles Lyell]], in his ''[[Principles of Geology]]'', wrote of Strabo:<ref>{{cite book|last=Lyell|first=Charles|url=https://archive.org/details/principlesgeolo01unkngoog|title=Principles of Geology|date=1832|publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]|pages=[https://archive.org/details/principlesgeolo01unkngoog/page/n42 20]–21|author-link=Charles Lyell}}</ref>

{{blockquote|
Strabo…enters largely, in the Second Book of his ''[[Geographica|Geography]]'', into the opinions of [[Eratosthenes]] and other Greeks on one of the most difficult problems in geology, ''viz''., by what causes marine shells came to be plentifully buried in the earth at such great elevations and distances from the sea.

He notices, amongst others, the explanation of [[Xanthus (historian)|Xanthus]] the Lydian, who said that the seas had once been more extensive, and that they had afterwards been partially dried up, as in his own time many lakes, rivers, and wells in Asia had failed during a season of drought. Treating this conjecture with merited disregard, Strabo passes on to the hypothesis of [[Strato of Lampsacus|Strato]], the natural philosopher, who had observed that the quantity of mud brought down by rivers into the Euxine [Black Sea] was so great, that its bed must be gradually raised, while the rivers still continued to pour in an undiminished quantity of water. He therefore conceived that, originally, when the Euxine was an inland sea, its level had by this means become so much elevated that it burst its barrier near Byzantium, and formed a communication with the [[Propontis]] [Sea of Marmara], and this partial drainage had already, he supposed, converted the left side into marshy ground, and that, at last, the whole would be choked up with soil. So, it was argued, the Mediterranean had once opened a passage for itself by the [[Columns of Hercules]] into the Atlantic, and perhaps the abundance of sea-shells in Africa, near the Temple of [[Jupiter (mythology)#Syncretic or geographical epithets|Jupiter]] [[Amun|Ammon]], might also be the deposit of some former inland sea, which had at length forced a passage and escaped.

But Strabo rejects this theory as insufficient to account for all the phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only beginning to appreciate. 'It is not,' he says, 'because the lands covered by seas were originally at different altitudes, that the waters have risen, or subsided, or receded from some parts and inundated others. But the reason is, that the same land is sometimes raised up and sometimes depressed, and the sea also is simultaneously raised and depressed so that it either overflows or returns into its own place again. We must, therefore, ascribe the cause to the ground, either to that ground which is under the sea, or to that which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that which lies beneath the sea, for this is more moveable, and, on account of its humidity, can be altered with great celerity. It is proper,' he observes in continuation, '''to derive our explanations from things which are obvious, and in some measure of daily occurrences, such as deluges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea;'' for the last raise up the sea also, and when the same lands subside again, they occasion the sea to be let down. And it is not merely the small, but the large islands also, and not merely the islands, but the continents, which can be lifted up together with the sea; and both large and small tracts may subside, for habitations and cities, like Bure, Bizona, and many others, have been engulfed by earthquakes.'

In another place, this learned geographer [Strabo], in alluding to the tradition that Sicily had been separated by a convulsion from Italy, remarks, that at present the land near the sea in those parts was rarely shaken by earthquakes, since there were now open orifices whereby fire and ignited matters and waters escaped; but formerly, when the volcanoes of [[Mount Etna|Etna]], the [[Lipari Islands]], [[Ischia]], and others, were closed up, the imprisoned fire and wind might have produced far more vehement movements. The doctrine, therefore, that volcanoes are safety valves, and that the subterranean convulsions are probably most violent when first the volcanic energy shifts itself to a new quarter, is not modern.
}}

=== Fossil formation ===
Strabo commented on fossil formation mentioning [[Nummulite]] (quoted from [[Celâl Şengör]]):<ref name="StraboGeogVIII"/><blockquote>One extraordinary thing which I saw at the pyramids must not be omitted. Heaps of stones from the quarries lie in front of the pyramids. Among these are found pieces which in shape and size resemble lentils. Some contain substances like grains half peeled. These, it is said, are the remnants of the workmen's food converted into stone; which is not probable. For at home in our country (Amaseia), there is a long hill in a plain, which abounds with pebbles of a porous stone, resembling lentils. The pebbles of the sea-shore and of rivers suggest somewhat of the same difficulty [respecting their origin]; some explanation may indeed be found in the motion [to which these are subject] in flowing waters, but the investigation of the above fact presents more difficulty. I have said elsewhere, that in sight of the pyramids, on the other side in Arabia, and near the stone quarries from which they are built, is a very rocky mountain, called the Trojan mountain; beneath it there are caves, and near the caves and the river a village called Troy, an ancient settlement of the captive Trojans who had accompanied Menelaus and settled there.</blockquote>

=== Volcanism ===
Strabo commented on [[volcanism]] ([[effusive eruption]]) which he observed at [[Katakekaumene]] (modern [[Kula (volcano)|Kula]], Western Turkey).  Strabo's observations predated [[Pliny the Younger]] who witnessed the eruption of [[Mount Vesuvius]] on 24 August AD&nbsp;79 in [[Pompeii]]:<ref name="StraboGeogVI">{{cite book|author=Strabo|url=https://archive.org/stream/in.gov.ignca.2918/2918#page/n191/search/Dionysus+|title=Geography|date=1950|publisher=William Heinemann|volume=VI Book XIII|location=London|page=183|translator=Horace Leonard Jones|section=11}}</ref><blockquote>…There are no trees here, but only the vineyards where they produce the Katakekaumene wines which are by no means inferior from any of the wines famous for their quality. The soil is covered with ashes, and black in colour as if the mountainous and rocky country was made up of fires. Some assume that these ashes were the result of thunderbolts and subterranean explosions, and do not doubt that the legendary story of [[Typhon]] takes place in this region. Ksanthos adds that the king of this region was a man called Arimus. However, it is not reasonable to accept that the whole country was burned down at a time as a result of such an event rather than as a result of a fire bursting from underground whose source has now died out. Three pits are called "Physas" and separated by forty stadia from each other. Above these pits, there are hills formed by the hot masses burst out from the ground as estimated by a logical reasoning. Such type of soil is very convenient for [[viniculture]], just like the Katanasoil which is covered with ashes and where the best wines are still produced abundantly. Some writers concluded by looking at these places that there is a good reason for calling Dionysus by the name ("Phrygenes").</blockquote>