Ancient Science · Part 17 · Maps · B1–B2
Strabo’s Geography: A Traveller of Philo’s Own Time
Part 17 of Ancient Science: Strabo, who lived in Alexandria when Philo was a baby, wrote a geography of the whole known world, and nearly all of it survives. Sophia shows what he saw with his own eyes, from the Pharos to the Nilometer and the singing statue of Memnon, and where he trusted books, or his own prejudices, too much. Have you ever…? I have travelled…, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight’s scholar is still alive, Philo. He walked these streets when you were a baby: Strabo of Amaseia.
The same. He was writing a geography of the whole known world, in seventeen books, and almost all of it will survive. In it he describes Alexandria: the harbour, the Pharos, the Museum, the very streets outside.
Not everywhere, though he likes to say he has travelled further than most. Let me show you.
Pontus, Rome and Alexandria, about 64 BCE – 24 CE
Strabo was born around 64 BCE in Amaseia, in Pontus, on the southern coast of the Black Sea, into a wealthy Greek family. He studied in Asia Minor and in Rome, and lived for several years in Alexandria, around 25 to 20 BCE, as a friend of the Roman governor of Egypt.
His Geography, in seventeen books, describes the whole known world, from Iberia to India: coasts, rivers, cities, peoples, history and products. It is the largest geography book that survives from the ancient world, and nearly all of it has come down to us.
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