Strabonis De Situ Orbis, Tomus Secondus. Cum indice locupletissimo. - Geographicorum Libert X-XVII.

722, [67] pp. 16mo, 5 x 3 1/4. A^8 - Ccc ^8, Ddd^4. The second volume of Strabo's two-volume work 'Geography,' containing, books X-XVII. This work was first translated into Latin in 1469, and the first critical edition appeared in 1587. By geography Strabo means ancient physical geography and by chorography, political geography. The two are combined in this work, which makes a 'circuit of the earth' detailing the physical and political features. Strabo often uses the adjective geographika with reference to the works of others and to geography in general, but not of his own work. In the Middle Ages it became the standard name used of his work. Strabo traveled extensively, undoubtedly gathering notes, and made extended visits to Rome and Alexandria, where he is sure to have spent time in the famous library taking notes from his sources. "Strabo (born c. 64 BCE, Amaseia, Pontus—died after 21 CE) was a Greek geographer and historian whose Geography is the only extant work covering the whole range of peoples and countries known to both Greeks and Romans during the reign of Augustus (27 BCE–14 CE). Its numerous quotations from technical literature, moreover, provide a remarkable account of the state of Greek geographical science, as well as of the history of the countries it surveys... Under the influence of Athenodorus, former tutor of Octavius, who probably introduced him into the future emperor’s circle, he turned toward Stoical philosophy, the precepts of which included the view that one unique principle ceaselessly pervading the whole universe causes all phenomena... It was in Rome, where he stayed at least until 31 BCE, that he wrote his first major work, his 47-book Historical Sketches, published in about 20 BCE, of which but a few quotations survive. A vast and eclectic compilation, it was meant as a continuation of Polybius’s Histories. The Historical Sketches covered the history of the known world from 145 BCE—that is, from the conquest of Greece by the Romans—to the Battle of Actium (31 BCE) or to the beginnings of the principate of the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BCE)... He died after having devoted his last years to compiling his second important work, his Geographical Sketches... The first two books, in effect, provide a definition of the aims and methods of geography by criticizing earlier works and authors. Strabo found fault with the map designing of the Greek scholar Eratosthenes, who lived from c. 276 to c. 194 BCE; Eratosthenes had combined astronomical data with coast and road measurements, but Strabo found his work lacking in precision. Although Strabo closely followed the treatise against Eratosthenes of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who had lived in the 2nd century BCE, he blamed Hipparchus for neglecting the description of the Earth. On the other hand, he appreciated Polybius, who had written, in addition to his historical works, two books on European geography that Strabo admired for their descriptions of places and peoples. Although he praised Poseidonius (Posidonius), the Greek historian and philosopher who lived from about 135 to 51 BCE, for his knowledge of physical geography and ethnography, he rejected Poseidonius’s theory of climatic zones and particularly his hypothesis that the equatorial zone was habitable. This critical study led him logically to decide in favour of a descriptive type of geography, based on a map with an orthogonal (perpendicular) projection. The problem of projecting the sphere on a flat surface is not dealt with at any length, for his work, as he said, was designed not for mathematicians but for statesmen who must know countries, natural resources, and customs... Books XI to XIV describe the Asian shores of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, northern Iran, and Asia Minor. Here Strabo made the greatest use of his own observations, though he often quoted historians who dealt with the wars fought in these regions and cited Demetrius on problems of Homeric topography in the region about ancient Troy. India and Persia (Book XV) were described according to information given by the historians of the campaigns of Alexander the Great (356 to 323 BCE), whereas his descriptions of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and the Red Sea (Book XVI) were based on the accounts of the expeditions sent out by Mark Antony (about 83 to 30 BCE) and by the emperor Augustus, as well as on chapters on ethnography in Poseidonius and on the book of a Red Sea voyage taken by the Greek historian and geographer Agatharchides (2nd century BCE). Strabo’s own memories of Egypt, supplemented by the writings of Poseidonius and Artemidorus, provided material for the substance of Book XVII, which dealt with the African shores of the Mediterranean Sea and with Mauretania.Obviously, personal travel notes formed only a small part of the material used in this considerable work, although Strabo prided himself on having travelled westward from Armenia as far as the regions of Tuscany opposite Sardinia, and southward from the Black Sea as far as the frontiers of Ethiopia. Even on the subject of Italy, where he lived for a long time, Strabo did not himself contribute more than a few scattered impressions. His material, accordingly, mostly dates from the time of the sources he used, although the reader is not made aware of this. The value of firsthand observations, chosen from the sources with care, compensates, however, for his lack of originality and contemporaneousness. Strabo showed himself equally competent in selecting useful information—giving distances from city to city and mentioning the frontiers between countries or provinces as well as the main agricultural and industrial activities, political statutes, ethnographic peculiarities, and religious practices. He also took interest in the histories of cities and states, and—when he knew them—mentioned the circumstances under which they were founded, related myths or legends, wars they had instigated or endured, their expansion or recession, and their celebrities. Geological phenomena were reported when they were in some way unusual or when they furnished an explanation for other phenomena—such as the Atlantic tides in Iberia, the volcanic landscapes to be seen in southern Italy and Sicily, the fountains of naphtha occurring near the Euphrates River, and the rise and fall of the Nile waters. Paradoxically, although the description of Greece fills three whole books, such elements are virtually neglected in them. In this part, indeed, Strabo was more attracted by the problem of identifying the localities mentioned in Homer’s works than in the geographical realities. These books, however, illustrate another side of his thought, based on the conviction that Homer was perfectly acquainted with the geography of the Mediterranean area and that the correct critical interpretation would reveal his vast learning. This Classical thesis is abundantly defended in Strabo’s introduction, which attacks the skepticism of Eratosthenes; moreover, it represents, in Strabo’s work, the specific contribution to learning of the Greek cultural tradition." - Britannica