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In Search of the Author of Strabo's Geography*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2012

Katherine Clarke
Katherine Clarke
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford
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Extract

‘As intellectuals and academics we are constantly engaging in projects of representation, but in the dominant epistemologies that guide our work, our role as representers is effaced’.

‘At the heart of the issue lies a fundamental insistence on the contextualised nature of all forms of knowledge, meaning and behaviour. There is a further recognition of the partial and partisan edge to inquiry, theory construction, and scholarly (re)presentation, as well as an explicit acknowledgement of the importance of the author's biography in this creative process’.

The assertions of two modern geographers, Katz and Merrifield, are symptomatic of an underlying, but persistent, debate within their field of study. To what degree should academic prose aim at impersonality? The discipline of modern geography, perhaps more than any other academic subject at pains constantly to justify and redefine itself, has taken on this problem, formulated its history, and posited some solutions.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 87 , November 1997 , pp. 92 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Katherine Clarke 1997. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Katz, C., ‘All the world is staged: intellectuals and the projects of ethnography’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10 (1992), 496CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Merrifield, A., ‘Situated knowledge through exploration: reflections on Bunge's “Geographical Expeditions”’, Antipode 27.1 (1995), 50Google Scholar.

3 The story of how subject peoples were depicted in both literary and pictorial representations in such a way as to conform to the ideals of their conquerors requires little illustration. For the phenomenon in art,see Bell, L., ‘Artists and empire: Victorian representations of subject people’. Art History 5.1 (1982), 73–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a cartographic and literary parallel, see Godlewska, A., ‘Map, text and image. The mentality of enlightened conquerors: a new look at the Description de l'Egypte’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers N.S. 20 (1995), 5–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on how written texts and maps, collated as part of Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, were designed to justify the conquest and to confirm France's cultural superiority.

4 See, for example, Christopherson, S., ‘On being outside “the project”’, Antipode 21.2 (1989), 83–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing for an acceptance of different authorial perspectives in geography.

5 The phrase was coined, at least for use in modern geography, by Haraway, D. in ‘Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective’, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991), 183–201.Google Scholar

6 Katz, op. cit. (n. 1), 495–510.

7 Geertz, C., The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), 452.Google Scholar

8 See FGrH 91 for the nineteen extant fragments of this 47-book work, described, like Poseidonios' Histories, as τὰ μετὰ Πολύβιον (T 2). A. Diller, The Textual Tradition of Strabo's Geography (1975), 7, has suggested that the historical works of Strabo and Nicolaus of Damascus were associated as a pair, perhaps explaining the survival of one and the disappearance of the other.

9 Dionysios 174–219; Strabo 2.5.33. The comment concerns the nature of Libya – like a leopard's skin, spotted with oases.

10 Syme, R., Anatolica. Studies in Strabo (1995), 356.Google Scholar

11 Foucault, M., ‘What is an author?’, in Rabinow, P. (ed.), The Foucault Reader (1984), 101–21.Google Scholar

12 Thucydides 1.1.1: Θουκυδίδης ’Αθηναῖος …; Herodotos 1.1: ‛Ηροδότου ‛Αλικαρνησσέος …

13 Dionysios, , A. R. 1.1.1Google Scholar.

14 A. R. 1.8.4.

15 Arrian, , Anabasis 1.12.5Google Scholar.

16 Moles, J. L., ‘The interpretation of the “Second Preface” in Arrian's Anabasis’, JHS 105 (1985), 162–8Google Scholar, at 164.

17 Preface 15, mirroring the language of Arrian. But has Appian really said enough to make this claim?

18 Müller, C. (ed.), Geographi Graeci Minores (1882)Google Scholar. For a useful edition see Ramin, J., Le Périple d'Hannon. The Periplus of Hanno, B.A.R. Supp. Ser. 3 (1976)Google Scholar.

19 Müller, , GGM I, 196Google Scholar ff. For Nikomedes, see 1. 2.

20 ll. 33–44.

21 One late historian, Zosimus, author of ἱστορίαι νἐαι in the early sixth century A.D., certainly kept the debate open. The first words of his work are Πολυβίῳ τῷ Mεγαλοπολίτῃ, who turns out to be Zosimus' model in reverse. Polybios' rise of Rome was now to be given its counterpart as Zosimus described its decline. But by placing a name other than his own in the position where traditionally the historian introduced himself, Zosimus was playing on the convention. We can only imagine what confusion could have ensued if the start of the text had survived in isolation. Would this fragment have meant the attribution of a new lost work to Polybios himself?

22 For excellent discussion of the author and his work see Michael Whitby, The Emperor Maurice and his Historian. Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare (1988). It is interesting that Theophylact almost certainly spent some time as a law student in Constantinople (Whitby, 29), which is where our sixth-century references to Strabo suggest a text of the Geography was at that period. There can be no proof that Theophylact knew Strabo's work, but parallels between their modes of authorial self-presentation are interesting none the less.

23 Theophylact did mention his name once, in the formal title at the start of his Table of Contents, ‘Book One of the Universal History of Theophylact, expraefectus and antigrapheus’. On this point even Theophylact was defeated in impersonality by Strabo.

24 Whitby, op. cit. (n. 22), 42.

25 Strabo, , Geography 1.1.1Google Scholar: τῆς τοῦ φιλοσόφου πραγματείας εἶναι νομίζομεν, εἴπερ ἄλλην τινά, καὶ τὴν γεωγραφικήν, ἣν νῦν προῃρήμεθα ἐπισκοπεῖν.

26 Polybios 36.12.1–2.

27 Jacob, C., Géographie et ethnographie en Grèce ancienne (1991), 73–84Google Scholar; Cordano, F., La Geografia degli antichi (1992), 29.Google Scholar

28 Fraser, P., ‘The world of Theophrastus’, in Hornblower, S. (ed.), Greek Historiography (1994), 167–91Google Scholar, illustrates a quite different medium through which the opening up of the world could be expressed. Fraser explores how Theophrastus' botanical works could be seen as a ‘mirror of the great changes that the world had recently undergone’ (169).

29 Another ancient example is Dikaiarkhos' Periegesis of Greece (See Müller, , GGM I, 97–110Google Scholar), in which the experienced nature of the journey is made very clear. The reader is taken along the pleasant ὁδός to Athens and shown everything of interest both on the way and in the city itself (§ 1–4). We are told that the route from Athens to Oropos is a journey of one day for a person without baggage, and that the steepness of the route is compensated for by plenty of resting places (1.6).

30 For this distinction see Langton, J., ‘The two traditions of geography. Historical geography and the study of landscapes’, Geografiska Annaler 70B (1988), 17–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Merrifield, A., ‘Place and space. A Lefebvrian reconciliation’, Transactions and Papers of the Institute of British Geographers N.S. 18.4 (1993), 516–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Strabo 8.1.1 gives Ephoros and Polybios as examples of writers who have included geographical descriptions ἐν τῇ κοινῇ τῆς ἱστορίας γραφῇ.

32 Our attribution of the text to a ‘Strabo’ is derived from several pieces of information. Athenaeus cites Strabo as the author of passages bearing a strong similarity to parts of the text as we have it (see Diller, op. cit. (n. 8), 8); Stephanus of Byzantium in the sixth century A.D. cites Strabo's text in the form Στράβων ἐν ζ′ etc. without title, as he obviously knew only one work by this author; other sixth-century authors to mention Strabo as author of the Geography include Marcianus of Heraclea and Priscianus of Lydia. The manuscript tradition shows the name of Strabo attached to the text (or parts of the text) of the Geography, starting with the sixth-century palimpsest (π), which has the heading ΣТРАВΩΝΟΣ θ in the margin above the text of Book 9.

33 Josephos persistently refers to Strabo as ὁ Καππάδοξ (A.J. 13.286; 14.35; 14.104.111; 14.138; 159). Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century cites Strabo four times and describes him as Καππαδόκης ὢν τὸ γένος ἐξ ’Αμασείας τῆς πόλεως (see Diller, op. cit. (n. 8), 81), combining two aspects of his identity.

34 Waddy, L., ‘Did Strabo visit Athens?’, American Journal of Archaeology 67 (1963), 296–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues against the view that Strabo saw nowhere in Greece at first hand except for Corinth. It is only because of the chance meeting with envoys on their way to see Octavian that we know Strabo visited Gyaros, according to this argument. Strabo probably passed through Athens on one of his journeys from Asia Minor to Rome, but did not consider himself sufficiently well acquainted with the place to claim autopsy as he does for Corinth. The description that Strabo gives of Athens fits well with the devastation that it suffered at Sulla's hands in 87/6 B.C., described also by Servius Sulpicius Rufus to Cicero in 45 B.C. as ‘nunc prostrata et diruta’ (Ad Fam. 4.5.4). This view is supported by Strabo's comment concerning Eratosthenes (1.2.2) that to write about the Mediterranean without having seen Athens would lay one open to criticism.

35 2.5.11. It would be interesting to know to which geographers Strabo refers.

36 8.6.23.

37 But 10.5.3 shows Strabo crossing the Aegean again in 29 B.C. We do not know for certain that he was on his way to Rome when he met the envoys from Gyaros, but it seems likely that he made several visits. Possibly the journey in 29 B.C. was the prelude to his travels with Aelius Gallus.

38 10.4.10. Strabo mentions that he met Stratarkhas in his extreme old age.

39 Pais, E. (trans. Curtis, C. D.), Ancient Italy (1908), 421–6.Google Scholar

40 Anderson, J. G. C., ‘Some questions bearing on the date and place of composition of Strabo's Geography’, in Butler, W. H. and Calder, W. M. (eds), Anatolian Studies presented to Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1923), 1–13Google Scholar.

41 12.3.39.

42 12.2.6: δν ἡμεῖς εἴδομεν. The verb itself is problematic. It is often translated ‘I was acquainted’, but surely this would usually be ᾖσμεν, with εἴδομεν meaning ‘I saw’. But what would ‘whom I saw’ signify in this context? Strabo may simply be indicating contemporaneity, or possibly referring to some official πομπή.

43 Cicero, , Phil. 2.12Google Scholar mentions the recent death of Servilius and was composed in Sept./Oct. 44 B.c.

44 Pace P.-W. on Isauria, it does not seem likely that the P. Servilius who was proconsul of Asia in 46–44 B.C. actually won (erwerben) the name Isauricus.

45 17.3.7.

46 If the younger Servilius was meant, then, of course, Strabo could have met him in Rome in the 20s B.C.

47 Apollonios of Tyre (16.2.24) and Antiokhos of Askalon (16.2.29) are both described as μιкρὸν πρὸ ἡμῶν. We hardly know enough about these intellectuals independently of Strabo's testimony to be able to draw any chronological conclusions.

48 8.7.5.

49 12.3.41. Two possible dates could be referred to: 63/2 B.C. when Pompey added the coastal part of Paphlagonia to Pontos, or 6 B.C. when inland Paphlagonia was added to the province of Galatia. Of these the first seems to offer the only plausible solution.

50 17.3.7.

51 Mackie, N. K., ‘Augustan colonies in Mauretania’, Historia 32 (1983), 332–58Google Scholar.

52 ’Επὶ τῶν πατέρων τῶν ἡμετέρων and ἐπὶ τῶν ἡμετέρων πατέρων are used with no greater precision, but refer to whole lives or events. See 12.8.16; 12.8.20; 14.2.25.

53 6.1.6; 8.6.23; 8.7.5; 15.4.22.

54 13.4.8; 12.3.29; 17.3.7.

55 In this he was taking up and developing the arguments of Forbiger, A., Handbuch der alten Geographie I (1842)Google Scholar and Meyer, P., ‘Quaestiones Strabonianae’, Leipziger Studien 2 (1879), 47–72Google Scholar. Forbiger had envisaged a text largely completed well before A.D. 18, but emended and enlarged upon through Strabo's old age; Meyer argued that the first seven books were written between 6 B.C. and A.D. 2, with the rest of the work following later.

56 Pais, op. cit. (n. 39), 407. Pais never states what he envisaged happening to the work between 7 B.C. and the revised version of A.D. 17/18. Was it published, and then republished, or stored unread for a quarter of a century?

57 Diller, op. cit. (n. 8), 6, developing the arguments of A. Meineke, Vindiciarum Strabonianarum Liber (1852), whose picture was of a text revised at intervals over a long period, but lacking the final stage of alterations. For a discussion of the various suggestions concerning the production of the text as we know it see R. Nicolai, ‘Scelte critico-testuali e problemi storici nel libri V e VI della Geografia di Strabone’, in G. Maddoli (ed.), Strabone e l'ltalia antica (1988), 267–86.

58 Rostovtzeff, M., Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (1941), 953.Google Scholar

59 See Plut., , Lucullus 23Google Scholar for Lucullus' beneficial actions. Broughton, T. R. S. in Frank, T. (ed.), An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome IV (1938), 519–25Google Scholar, stresses the real hindrance to trade and communications caused by the pirates. Piracy had become an increasingly grave problem during the second century as the powers, such as Rhodes, which had tried to check it, went into decline. Strasburger, H., ‘Poseidonios on problems of the Roman Empire’, JRS 55 (1965), 40–53Google Scholar, argues that Rome was responsible for this decline and so, indirectly, for the severity of the pirate problem, exacerbated by Rome's promotion of Delos over Rhodes as a slave emporium.

60 This is amply demonstrated by the Lex de provinciis praetoriis of late 101 B.C. (see Crawford, M. H. (ed.), Roman Statutes (1996), no. 12Google Scholar).

61 Plut., Pompey 28. Appian, Mithridatic Wars 96 stresses the speed with which Pompey was able to subdue the pirates of Kilikia simply by force of his name.

62 11.4.5.

63 12.3.1; 12.3.30; 12.3.31.

64 5.4.4; 6.1.6; 6.2.4.

65 6.1.6.

66 6.2.4.

67 On the Parthians and Artavasdes 11.13.3; 11.14.9; 11.14.15; 16.1.28; on Kleon 12.8.9; on Polemon 12.8.16; on land 14.5.3; 14.5.10; on Actium 17.1.9; 17.1.10.

68 8.7.5; 10.5.3; 12.3.1.

69 11.3.14.

70 3.3.8 on Tiberius and Kantabria; 12.8.18 on Tiberius and the earthquakes affecting the cities of Asia Minor; 12.1.4 on his decree, in conjunction with the Senate, of Kappadokia as a Roman province after the death of Arkhelaus.

71 The Suda says of Strabo: γέγονεν ἐπί Ττβερίον Καίσαρος (FGrH 91 T2). But note the judgement of Pais, op. cit. (n. 39), 380–1: ‘The question as to whether the Geography of Strabo is a product of the age of Tiberius and written between 18 and 19 A.D. should be answered with a decided “No”.’

72 6.4.2. A contrast must be drawn between this passage and the parallel one at 17.3.25, in which Tiberius is not mentioned. However, nor is it asserted that Augustus was still in power at the time of writing. We are told simply that the provinces are ‘at the present time (ἐν δὲ τῷ παρόντι) as Augustus Caesar arranged them’. This, if anything, implies that Augustus was by now dead, thus making it noteworthy that the provincial arrangements had not been altered by his successor.

73 As at 6.4.2. At 7.1.3 he relates the victory over the Bructeri on the river Amasias, and the death of Drusus between the Salas and the Rhine. At 7.1.4 he mentions the disaster that befell Quinctilius Varus in A.D. 9, followed by the triumph celebrated by Germanicus in May A.D. 17, having defeated the Cherusci and other tribes.

74 The exception is 7.1.2, which gives details of physique and lifestyle; and discusses the names Galatai and Germani.

75 7.1.4.

76 4.1.3.

77 Appian, Mithridatic Wars 94 and Plut., Pompey 25.

78 Plut., Pompey 38.

79 Diodoros 40.4. In Pliny, N.H. 7.97–8, the same connection between the suppression of piracy and Rome's further victories is present. The link is obvious in practical terms. Thalassocracy, won by Rome through the victory over piracy, had been seen since Thucydides as a step towards empire. At 1.8 he describes the process by which Minos of Crete put down piracy and gained great power as a result of the consequent control of the sea. The foreshadowing in the inscription for Pompey of Augustus' Res Gestae, set up before his Mausoleum after his death, is brought out by Nicolet, C., Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (1991), 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 Plut., Pompey 45 : εἰσαγαγὼν τρόπον τινα τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐδόκει τοῖς τρισὶν ὑπῆχθαι θρίαμβοις. For inscriptions listing conquests, we may recall Strabo 4.3.2 and the altar to Augustus bearing an inscription listing the sixty tribes of the Galatai, now under Roman rule.

81 Appian, Mithridatic Wars 119.

82 ibid., 121.

83 Plut., , Caesar 58.6–7Google Scholar.

84 The notion of universalism can, of course, be traced back still further, not least in Polybios' Histories. But Polybios' universalism was very differently conceived, and it was not until Pompey that the incorporation of almost the whole known world under one power first became a real possibility.

85 10.2.13. We are told that Antonius had not yet completed the synoecism by the time he was given permission to return, so the foundation was presumably not started long before that date.

86 6.2.4; 10.2.2.

87 7.3.10. Aelius Catus (cos. in A.D. 4) may have carried out this operation in Thrace c. A.D. 2/3 as proconsul of Macedonia and legate of Moesia (see CAH x2, 350).

88 Amyntas' control of Derbe and the two Isaurai (12.6.3); revolts in Babylonia (15.3.12); and the large size of Laodikeia (12.8.16) are all ἐφ’ ἡμῶν but this does not help greatly in the attempt to pin down a temporal viewpoint for the author.

89 Events to be described in this way are: the looting of the temple of Leukotheia by Pharnakes, the son of Mithridates Eupator, and who died in 47 B.C. (11.2.17); Julius Caesar's assistance in the restoration of Ilium after the attempts of Sulla (13.1.27); the rule of king Auletes of Egypt (died 51 B.C.) (17.1.11); the possession of Siga by Juba I (died c. 46 B.C.) (17.3.9).

90 C. Iulius Eurykles, ruler of the Lakedaimonians καθ ἡμᾶς, won this possession, as well as Roman citizenship, after fighting alongside Octavian at Actium (8.5.1); the career of Kleon, chief brigand in the mountains of the Troad, whose main anti-Roman activity took place before Actium (12.8.8); the establishment of Tarcondimotos as king of the Mount Amanos region (died 31 B.C.) (14.5.18).

91 13.4.8.

92 13.2.3.

93 13.4.15; 14.2.23.

94 14.5.14.

95 16.2.10. Diller, op. cit. (n. 8), 9, dismisses as chronologically impossible the statement at Athenaeus 657 that Strabo said in Book 7 that he knew Poseidonios. I agree with the conclusion, but it does seem strange that two separate passages suggest contemporaneity, unless Athenaeus was mistaken about the book number, and was referring to the passage in Book 16.

96 See Katz, op. cit. (n. 1), ‘simply positioning ourselves in our narratives as agents as well as storytellers, for example, undermines our ability to parade as “invisible men” ’ (498).