Strabo Geography front.preface.1

[1] STRABO, the author of this work, was born at Amasia , or Amasijas, a town situated in the gorge of the mountains through which passes the river Iris, now the Ieschil Irmak, in Pontus , which he has described in the 12th book. ¹ He lived during the reign of Augustus, and the earlier part of the reign of Tiberius; for in the 13th book ² he relates how Sardes and other cities, which had suffered severely from earthquakes, had been repaired by the provident care of Tiberius the present Emperor; but the exact date of his birth, as also of his death, are subjects of conjecture only. Coraÿ and Groskurd conclude, though by a somewhat different argument, that he was born in the year B. C. 66, and the latter that he died A. D. 24. The date of his birth as argued by Groskurd, proceeds on the assumption that Strabo was in his thirty-eighth year when he went from Gyaros to Corinth , at which latter place Octavianus Caesar was then staying on his return to Rome after the battle of Actium , B. C. 31. We may, perhaps, be satisfied with following Clinton , and place it not later than B. C. 54.

In the 17th book our author speaks of the death of Juba as a recent occurrence. This event took place A. D. 21, or A. D. 18 or 19, according to other chronologists; he, therefore, outlived that king, but for how long a period we have no means of ascertaining.

The only information which we can obtain of the personal history of Strabo is to be collected from the scanty references made to himself in the course of this work; ³ for although a writer of the Augustan age, his name and his works appear to have been generally unknown to his contemporaries, and to have been passed over in silence by subsequent authors who occupied themselves with the same branch of study. The work being written in Greek, and the subject itself not of a popular kind, would be hindrances to its becoming generally known; and its voluminous character would prevent many copies being made; moreover, the author himself, although for some time a resident at Rome , appears to have made Amasia his usual place of residence, and there to have composed his work. But wherever it was, he had the means of becoming acquainted with the chief public events that took place in the Roman Empire.