Strabo belongs on his mother's side to…
24 BCE
Strabo belongs on his mother's side to a famous family, whose members had held important offices under Mithridates V (around 150–120 BCE), as well as under Mithridates the Great (132–63 BCE), the opponent of Rome.
His first teacher had been the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, a former tutor of the sons of Pompey (106–48 BCE) in Nysa (now Sultanhisar in Turkey) on the Maeander.
Strabo in 44 BCE had emigrated to Rome to study with Tyrannion, the former tutor of Cicero, and with Xenarchus, both of whom were members of the Aristotelian school of philosophy.
Under the influence of Athenodorus, former tutor of Octavius, who probably introduced him into the future emperor's circle, he had turned toward Stoical philosophy, the precepts of which include the view that one unique principle ceaselessly pervading the whole universe causes all phenomena.
Before leaving Rome in 31 BCE, he had completed the forty-seven-volume Historical Sketches, of which but a few quotations survive.
A vast and eclectic compilation, it is meant as a continuation of Polybius' Histories.
The Historical Sketches covers the history of the known world from 145 BCE to 31 BCE—that is, from the Roman conquest of Greece to the Battle of Actium.
Strabo has traveled between Armenia and Sardinia and from the Black Sea to Ethiopia, incorporating both his own observations and earlier sources in his great work-in-progress, the Geography.
Strabo in 29 BCE had visited the island of Gyaros (today known as Yiáros, or Nisós) in the Aegean Sea, on his way to Corinth, Greece, where Augustus was staying.
Together with Aelius Gallus, he sails up the Nile in 25 or 24 as far as Philae.
Locations
Commodities
Subjects
Regions
The Near and Middle East
View →Subregions
