Strabo's Geography*

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CHAPTER 14 Strabo’s Geography*

Francesco Prontera

Strabo was born to a prominent family in Amaseia (modern Amasya, Turkey) the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Pontus. His forbears held important public offices under Mi t hridates V Euergetes (150–120 BC) and later under Mithridates VI Eupator, and were directly involved in the affairs of the realm until its end. A few of them remained loyal to the monarchy. Others, as did Strabo’s grandfather, crossed over to the other side when the Romans took power, thanks to the military campaigns first of Lucullus and then of Pompey (66–63 BC). The geographer’s birth most likely dates to this period (perhaps in 64/3 BC) and his death probably came after that of Juba II of Mauretania (23 AD) to whom Strabo himself refers many times (17.3.7; 9; 25). The little biographical information we have about Strabo all comes from his geographi- cal treatise. He made repeated sojourns in Rome. In 25/24 BC he joined the expedition led by Aelius Gallus, prefect of Egypt, to Arabia Felix, after having accompanied him on the ascent of the Nile until Syene (Aswan), on the bor- der with Ethiopia (2.5.12). Strabo’s sojourn in Alexandria certainly dates to this period, but by 7 BC he is back in Rome. By the second half of the 2nd century BC, Rome had become a cosmopol- itan city, where an especially warm welcome was accorded to those Greeks who were ready to take advantage of their technical, artistic and intellectual talents by putting them at the service of the new rulers of the world. The per- sonal relationships, which, from the Mithridatic Wars to the closing years of the Roman Republic, developed between Roman political leaders and the local aristocracies of the East, are generally rather well known, and it is certainly no coincidence that a lot of information about those relationships is occasion- ally provided by Strabo. The choice of sides that divided his family between Mithridates VI Eupator and the Romans, was also imposed on other leading intellectuals (rhetoricians and philosophers), who were politically active in the Hellenistic cities of Asia. Later on, during the tormented decades of the civil wars, the necessity or opportunity of choosing sides between the two parties to the conflict—Pompey or Caesar, Octavian or Antony—would pres- ent itself again. Even when the choice proved to be mistaken, the defeated sometimes found the victor to be their new patron. As part of his following,

* English transl. by Dr. Gregory Conti.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi ��.��63/9789004284715_015 240 Prontera they came to Rome, where they were able to continue performing their pedagogical and cultural services for the most prominent families of the aristocracy. After Actium (31 BC) and the end of the civil wars, the more favorable political climate allowed this process of cultural integration at the higher levels of Roman society to be fully completed. Strabo’s teachers included Aristodemus of Nysa (14.1.48), tutor to the children of Pompey the Grea t , and the philosopher Xenarchus of Seleucia in Cilicia (14.5.4). After sojourning in Athens and Alexandria, Xenarchus arrived in Rome, where he carried on with his pedagogical activities and, thanks to Arius Didymus, one of Augustus’ teachers, he became part of the emperor’s cir- cle of which he remained a respected and honored member for the rest of his life. Strabo also attended the lessons of a celebrated “grammarian,” his fellow countryman, Tyrannion of Amisus (12.3.16). Brought to Rome as a prisoner during the second Mithridatic War, Tyrannion enjoyed the friendship of Caesar, Atticus, and Cicero. He taught Cicero’s children and reorganized the library of Theophrastus, transported to Rome in 84 BC, after the sack of Athens by Sulla. Strabo also recalls as his friend (16.4.21) the stoic philosopher Athenodorus of Tarsus, student of Posidonius and tutor of Augustus (14.5.14). Apart from his friendship with Aelius Gallus, prefect of Egypt—to which can be added his acquaintance with Gnaeus Piso, proconsul of Africa (2.5.33)—Strabo tells us nothing more about his Roman patrons. He does seem, however, to have been well introduced into the thick network of relationships between important political leaders of the late Republic and exponents of Eastern Greek culture, a network which became more tightly woven following the Mithridatic Wars.1

1 The Structure: Map and Text

Before beginning work on his Geography, Strabo (1.1.23) wrote a 43- or 47-book history (Ἱστορικά ὑπομνήματα),2 as a sequel to Polybius, whose narration stops at 146/5 BC, with the destruction of Carthage and Corinth. Only some twenty fragments remain (FGrHist 91), whose contents do not help us much in under- standing if and in what measure, by revisiting the events already narrated by Posidonius as a continuation of the Histories by Polybius, he wished to distance himself from his predecessor. The fact that Strabo was writing after the civil wars could in any case have offered him a more secure perspective on the last

1 On Strabo’s biography and education see Aujac 1969a, VII–XXIII; Maddoli 1988; Engles 1999, 17–44; Dueck 2000, 1–30; Panichi 2005. On Strabo’s homeland cf. Bowersock 2000; Lindsay 2005. 2 Ambaglio 1990; Engels 1999, 76–89.