Editing Strabo (section)

===''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}}