Book front
notice.
This is all it seems necessary to state here. In the third volume will be given some account of the life and labours of Strabo, and of the manuscripts and principal editions; also a complete index of the places mentioned in the text, accompanied, where possible, by the modern names.
notice.
H. G. B.
PREFACE.
preface.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.Book xii. c. iii. 39. Vol. ii. page 311, 312. He lived during the reign of Augustus, and the earlier part of the reign of Tiberius; for in the 13th bookBook xiii. c. iv. § 8. Vol. ii. page 405. 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.
preface.1
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.
