Strabo of Amasia

Book excerpt: Strabo of Amasia offers an intellectual biography of Strabo, a Greek man of letters, set against the political and cultural background of Augustan Rome. It offers the first full-scale interpretation of the man and his life in English. It emphasises the place and importance of Strabo's Geography and of geography itself within these intellectual circles. It argues for a deeper understanding of the fusion of Greek and Roman elements in the culture of the Roman Empire. Though he wrote in Greek, Strabo must be regarded as an 'Augustan' writer like Virgil or Livy.