STRA BO, an ancient geographer, b. at A masea in Pontes. about the middle of the ' 1st C. B.C. By the mol her's side he was of Greek descent. and also closely connectethwith the Mithridatidfe: of his father or his frith( Vs family nothing is knoWn. 1-low tl:c name Strata) (" sip:int-eyed") must have originated is obvious. but whether any of the family were so called beh ire him is uncertain. St•abo was well educated tinder the gramma rians, Tyrannio of Amisus in Pontus, and Aristodemus of Nysa in Curia, and the phil osopher Nenarchus of Selcucia in CiHein. He does not appear to have followed any professional calling, but to have spent his life in travel and study, from which it may safely be inferred that he was possessed of wealth, or at least of considerable means. He died some time after 21 A.D., but how long we have no evidence to show. Strabo's Geography is a work of great value, in those pitrts especially which record the results of his own extensive observation. Westward," he says in a passage in the 2d book, "I have traveled from Armenia to the parts of Tyrrhenia adjacent to Sardinia; toward the south, from the Euxine to the borders of Eildopia. And perhaps there is not one among those who have written geographies who has visited more places than I have between these limits." Yet it must not be supposed that he describes with equal accu
racy or fullness all the countries of whose geography.he treats. Some he seems to have visited hurriedly, or in passing elsewhither; whers he knows like a native. For exam ple, his accounts of Greece, particularly the Eclopon In SUS, are meager in the extreme, and of many of the obscurer regions Ile writes chiefly from hearsay. Ile makes copious use of his predecessors, Eratosthenes. Anetnidlorus, Polybius, Posidonius, Aristotle, Theopompus, Thucydides, Aristoliulus, and many other writers now lost to us, but he strangely depreciates the authority of Herodotus, and quotes few Roman writers except Fabius, Pictor, acid Julius CLUSar. The Geography comprises 17 books, of which the first two are introductory, the next eignt are devoted to Europe, the six following to Asia, and the hest to Africa. The style is prim and simple. The editin princes of Strabo appeared at Venice in 1516; the latest and best is that by Gustaf Knauer (Ber. 1844, et sty.).