Strabo was a Greek
historianHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
,
geographerGeography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and
philosopherPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
.
Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in
PontusPontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Pontos...
(modern
AmasyaAmasya is the administrative district of Amasya Province in northern Turkey. It covers an area of 1730 km², and a population of 133,000....
Turkey), which had recently become part of the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in
NysaNysa was an ancient Greek city of Caria in Anatolia, whose remnants are now in the Sultanhisar district of Aydın Province of Turkey east of the Ionian city of Ephesus....
, later in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
. He was philosophically a
StoicStoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not undergo such emotions...
and politically a proponent of Roman
imperialismImperialism, as defined by the dictionary of human geography, is “the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination.” Imperialism, in many ways, is described...
. Later he made extensive travels to
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
and
KushThe Kingdom of Kush or Cush was an ancient African state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. It was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the Nile River Valley...
, among others.
Strabo was a Greek
historianHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
,
geographerGeography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and
philosopherPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
.
Life
Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in
PontusPontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Pontos...
(modern
AmasyaAmasya is the administrative district of Amasya Province in northern Turkey. It covers an area of 1730 km², and a population of 133,000....
Turkey), which had recently become part of the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in
NysaNysa was an ancient Greek city of Caria in Anatolia, whose remnants are now in the Sultanhisar district of Aydın Province of Turkey east of the Ionian city of Ephesus....
, later in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
. He was philosophically a
StoicStoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not undergo such emotions...
and politically a proponent of Roman
imperialismImperialism, as defined by the dictionary of human geography, is “the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination.” Imperialism, in many ways, is described...
. Later he made extensive travels to
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
and
KushThe Kingdom of Kush or Cush was an ancient African state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. It was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the Nile River Valley...
, among others. It is not known when his
Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor
TiberiusTiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla...
. Some place its first drafts around 7 AD, others around 18 AD. Last dateable mention is given to the death in 23 AD of
Juba IIJuba II or Juba II of Numidia was a king of Numidia and then later moved to Mauretania...
, king of Maurousia (
MauretaniaIn Antiquity, Mauretania was originally an independent Berber kingdom on the Mediterranean coast of north Africa , corresponding to western Algeria, northern Morocco and Spanish Plazas de soberanía. The Mauri people were indicated with the Greek word mauros, black...
), who is said to have died "just recently".
On the presumption that "recently" means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next (24 AD), when he died.
Strabo's
History is nearly completely lost. Although Strabo quotes it himself, and other classical authors mention that it existed, the only surviving document is a fragment of papyrus now in possession of the
University of MilanThe University of Milan is one of the largest universities in Italy, with about 62,801 students, a teaching and research staff of 2,455 and a non-teaching staff of 2,200....
(renumbered
[Papyrus
] 46).
Several different dates have been proposed for Strabo's death, but most of them conclude that Strabo died shortly after 23 AD.
The Geography
Strabo is mostly famous for his 17-volume work
Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era.
It is an important source of information on the ancient world, especially when information is corroborated by other sources. Within the books of
Geographica is a map of Europe (
see image at right).
External links