Strabo: The Geography

The Author, the Manuscripts

As with most ancient authors, not that much is known of Strabo, and the Loeb edition's introductory material, by the translator Horace Leonard Jones, is about as good as one can get. The Loeb edition also provides a thorough bibliography, including a very summary discussion of the principal manuscripts of the Geography: that too will eventually find its way onsite, except for some few addenda made by the Loeb editors in the later reprintings and therefore still under copyright. Further good information, especially on editions and translations, may be found on Sarah Pothecary's site.

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The Text of Strabo on LacusCurtius

As almost always, I'm retyping the text rather than scanning it: not only to minimize errors prior to proofreading, but as an opportunity for me to become intimately familiar with the work, an exercise which I heartily recommend. (Well-meaning attempts to get me to scan text, if successful, would merely turn me into some kind of machine: gambit declined.)

I run a first check immediately after entering each book, so that the text of all the books is quite good already. After that, I proofread the text word by word, a check which is meant to be final. In the little table of contents below, the sections are therefore shown on blue backgrounds, indicating that I believe the text of them to be completely errorfree, or on red backgrounds, that they still need that final proofreading. As elsewhere on this site, the header bar at the top of each chapter's webpage will remind you with the same color scheme. Should you spot an error, however . . . please do report it.

Books 6‑14 of the Geography have been online for some time at Perseus, in both the original Greek and an English translation. So although I intend to make the entire work available onsite, I started with Books 1‑5 and 15‑17. I plan on entering only the English translation, however, since those, now few, who read Greek, will very likely have access to TLG.

Edition Used

Loeb Classical Library, 8 volumes, Greek texts with facing English translation by H. L. Jones: Harvard University Press, 1917 thru 1932. The text is in the public domain: that of the earlier volumes because the copyright has lapsed; that of the later volumes, pursuant to the 1978 revision of the U.S. Copyright Code, because the copyright expired and was not renewed at the appropriate time. (Details here.).

Chapter and Section Numbering, Local Links

Both chapters (large numbers) and sections (small numbers) mark local links, according to a consistent scheme; you can therefore link to any passage directly. Similarly, for citation purposes, the Loeb edition pagination is indicated by local links in the sourcecode.

Inconsistencies in the English Translation

Somewhat understandably, since Prof. Jones' edition and translation of Strabo appeared over the course of fifteen years, he fell into a few minor inconsistencies. I've let them stand, but the reader should be aware of them. In addition to inconsistencies of capitalization, the main ones I noticed:

• Egypt, Aegypt
• Ethiopia, Aethiopia
• Cherronese, Chersonese
• Cinnamon-producing Country, Cinnamon-bearing Country
• coast-line, coastline
• sea-board, seaboard
• inhabited world, habited world