Duane W. Roller - The Geography of Strabo: An English Translation, with Introduction and Notes

The Geography of Strabo is the only surviving work of its type in Greek literature, and the major source for the history of Greek scholarship on geography and the formative processes of the earth. In addition, this lengthy and complex work contains a vast amount of information on other topics, including the journey of Alexander the Great, cultic history, the history of the eastern Mediterranean in the first century BC, and womens history. Modern knowledge of seminal geographical authors such as Eratosthenes and Hipparchos relies almost totally on Strabos use of them. This is the first complete English translation in nearly a century, and the first to make use of recent scholarship on the Greek text itself and on the history of geography. The translation is supplemented by a detailed discussion of Strabos life and his purpose in writing the Geography , as well as the sources that he used.

DUANE W. ROLLER is Professor Emeritus of Classics at the Ohio State University. An historian and archaeologist, he is the author of ten books, most recently Cleopatra: A Biography (2010) and Eratosthenes Geography (), and over a hundred and fifty scholarly articles on topics in archaeology, ancient history, classical studies, and musicology. He has also excavated in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel.

The Geography of Strabo is known to all, quoted by many, and understood by few. It is a complex, wandering work, the only survivor of its genre in Greek and one of the longest extant works in Greek literature. Generally it is mined for interesting tidbits rather than comprehended as a whole. Previous to this edition it had not been translated into English since the completion of the now-outdated Loeb version in the 1930s (which was thirty years in preparation), and there has been no full English commentary. In the hopes that this fascinating and wide-ranging treatise will become more accessible, this volume is the first of two that together will provide a modern English translation and extensive commentary.

Strabo probably began collecting data for the Geography as early as the 20s BC. Yet the work was not completed until sometime in the 20s AD. This half-century that saw the end of the civil war against Antonius and Kleopatra, the entire reign of Augustus, and the first decade of that of Tiberius, was one of immense change in the Mediterranean world. It included a vast expansion of geographical knowledge, especially in western Europe, the Kaspian region, and western North Africa. Strabo built on the existing data from his predecessors (especially the Geography of Eratosthenes, the work that created the discipline), as well as the explorations of the late Hellenistic period, such as those which established the sea route to the Indian peninsula. Yet buried within the geographical account is a vast amount of cultural history unavailable from any other extant source. The work is also the beginning of the discipline of topographical research, with Strabos insightful attempts to locate Nestors Pylos or the site of Troy.

This project developed out of the translators previous work in translating and editing geographical texts dependent on Strabo, such as the Geography of Eratosthenes and the Indika of Megasthenes ( BNJ #715), as well as Strabos own Historical Commentaries ( BNJ #91). The study of ancient geography also requires fieldwork, and although visiting every site mentioned by Strabo would probably be impossible, much of the terrain discussed by the geographer has been re-examined.

The sheer length of Strabos text has meant that it is not feasible to put both a translation and commentary into a single volume, yet this translation is prelude to a complete commentary. Much of this translation was actually created in Santa Fe, in a high desert landscape that Strabo would have found familiar. The translator would like to thank the exceedingly efficient interlibrary loan services of the Ohio State University, as well as the Harvard College Library and the libraries of the University of California at Berkeley and the University of New Mexico.

Special thanks also go to the many colleagues whose assistance made this work possible, especially Jeffrey Becker and the staff of the Ancient World Mapping Center, Kai Brodersen, David C. Braund, Stanley Burstein, D. T. Potts, Klaus Geus, David F. Graf, David E. Hahm, Georgia L. Irby, Molly Ayn Jones-Lewis, Susanne Lamm, Henry MacAdam, James D. Muhly, Letitia K. Roller, John Scarborough; Michael Sharp, Samantha Richter, Gill Cloke, Elizabeth Davey, and many others at Cambridge University Press; Richard Stoneman, and Richard Talbert.