Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/932

Rh 920 STRABO. peius Magnus. (Plutarch, Pompeius, c. 37, 42.) Metrodorus of Scepsis, Hypsicrates of Amisus, and Clitarchus, were also his authorities. For the second part he had Patrocles, and AristobuUis, who described the campaigns of Alexander, Eratosthenes, Herodotus, and Posidonius ; and for the third the historians of the Mithridatic War. With the twelfth book begins the description of Asia Minor, and treats of the northern part. Strabo had not seen all this tract himself, and the chief part of his knowledge was derived from oral information and the Greek historians. The de- scription of Asia Minor is continued in the thir- teenth book, but is confined to some districts of the north-western coast and the island of Lesbus. He devotes, as we might expect, a large space to the Troad, which he had doubtless visited, and he avails himself of Homer and the researches of Demetrius of Scepsis. This book contains much mythological and historical matter for which there were ample materials in Ephorus, Hellanicus, Charon, Menecrates, and many other Greek writers. His dissertation on the Leleges, Cilicians, and Pe- lasgi, who once inhabited the coast of Aeolis and of Ionia, is chiefly from Menecrates and Demetrius of Scepsis. The fourteenth book contains the description of the other parts of Asia Minor, Ionia, Caria, the islands Samos, Chios, Rhodos, the countries Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, and the island Cyprus. In addition to the authorities which he had for the thirteenth book, he adds for this book also Phere- cydes of Syros, for the Milesian colonies Anaxi- menes of Lampsacus, and Herodotus, Thucydides, Ephorus, Artemidorus, Eratosthenes, and Posi- donius. The fifteenth and sixteenth books contain the description of the second great division of A8ia,the southern, or the part on that side of Taurus. The fifteenth book contains the description of India and Persia, which Strabo never visited. His descrip- tion of India is very imperfect as a geographical description, but it contains much valuable matter, particularly about the people, which he derived from the historians of Alexander and of the cam- paigns of Seleucus in India. Patrocles, Aristo- bulus, and Nearchus, the two last of whom we know how to estimate by the aid of Arrian, he judiciously made his chief authorities. He also used Megasthenes, Onesicritus, Deimachus, and Clitarchus, but he did not put confidence in them. For East Persia, or Ariana, Eratosthenes is his ehief authority ; for West Persia, or Persia Proper, he had Aristobulus and Polycletus of Larissa, who wrote a history of Alexander ; and he derived something from Herodotus. In the sixteenth book he treats of Assyria, with Babylonia and Mesopotamia, Syria with Phoenicia and Palestine, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the coast of Ethiopia, and Arabia. His chief au- thorities for Assyria, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia, were some of the historians of Alexander, and Eratosthenes, Posidonius, and Herodotus : for the other parts, Eratosthenes, Posidonius, and Artemi- dorus. His description of Arabia and the adjacent coast of Libya is founded on Eratosthenes and Artemidorus, but Artemidorus derived materials for his description of the Red Sea from Agathar- chides of Cnidos. Strabo also obtained oral in- formation about Arabia from his friends Aelius Gallus and the Stoic Athenodorus. STRABO. In the seventeenth and last book Strabo describet Egypt, Ethiopia, and the north coast of Libya, He had seen all Egypt as far as the first cataracts, and his description of this country and of its ancient monuments is one of the most complete parts of his work. Besides the information that he could collect in Alexandria, he had Eratosthenes, Eudonis, Aristo, Polybius, and Posidonius. For the Am- monium he had the historians of Alexander, whom Arrian afterwards used ; and for Ethiopia the au- thority of Petronius, who had carried on war there, and also Agatharchides and Herodotus. As to the country of the Libyans and the tribes Strabo says little that is new ; but he made use of Era- tosthenes, Artemidorus, Posidonius, and Iphicrates, who wrote a work on the plants and animals of Libya. Strabo's historical work is mentioned by Josephus (Jewish Antiq. xiv. 7) and by Plutarch. His geogra- phical work is only mentioned by Marcianus of Heraclea, at the commencement of his Periplus, Athenaeus, and by Harpocration. in his Lexicon of the Ten Orators {Aexaiov, AevKcis). It was largely used by Stephanus of Byzantium, in the fifth century. It is not quoted by Pausanias, which is not surprising ; but it is somewhat singular that Plinius does not refer to it in his Natural History, a circumstance which justifies the conclusion that he was not acquainted with the work. Copies of the geography were probably dear, which will ex- plain its not being much in circulation, though the expense alone would not have prevented Plinius from getting it. " How much happier are we," exclaims Groskurd, with true Philhellenic en- thusiasm, " to whom the old Greek authors are now oflfered in unlimited abundance and in three- silver-groschen-little- volumes (dreisilbergroschen' bandchen)." If, then, there were few copies of Strabo, it is something of an accident that the work exists at all ; and it seems probable that the extant MSS. may all owe their origin to some one that existed in the middle ages. This inference appears to fol- low from the fact of the great corruption of Strabo's text, and the general agreement of all MSS. which have hitherto been collated in their lacunae and errors, for slight discrepancies in MSS. naturally result from copying, especially when the copyist is not a critic. The great lacuna at the end of the seventh book is found in all the MSS. ; but there must have been some MSS. on which was framed the Epitome which occupies the place of the original text, now deficient. The valuable MS. now at Paris (Cod. Par. 1393 ; in Falconer's edition. Par. 3) was brought from Asia in 1732, by the Abb6 Sevin. An Epitome or Chrestomatheia of Strabo was made by an unknown author, probably about A. D. .980.. It is printed in the second volume of Hud- son's Minor Geographers, and in the editions of Falconer and Koray. This epitome, which has all the faults inherent in an epitome, and some that are not unavoidable, extends to the whole work, and is of some use, as it has been made from a MS. diflferent from any that exist. Another epitome, still in MS., was made by the monk Maximus Planudes about 1 350 ; and excerpts from the first ten books made by Pletho, the teacher of Cardinal Bessarion, are still in MS. The excerpts were collated by Siebenkees, and used iu the Sie- benkees-Tzschucke edition.