Strabo

, a name among the Romans, given to those whose eyes were naturally deformed or distorted. Pompey’s father was distinguished by that name.――A native of Amasia, on the borders of Cappadocia, who flourished in the age of August us and Tiberius. He first studied under Xenarchus the peripatetic, and afterwards warmly embraced the tenets of the Stoics. Of all his compositions nothing remains but his geography, divided into 17 books, a work justly celebrated for its elegance, its purity, the erudition and universal knowledge of the author. It contains an account, in Greek, of the most celebrated places of the world, the origin, the manners, religion, prejudices, and government of nations; the foundation of cities, and the accurate history of each separate province. Strabo travelled over great part of the world in quest of information, and to examine with the most critical inquiry, not only the situation of the places, but also the manners of the inhabitants, whose history he meant to write. In the two first books the author wishes to show the nece ity of geography; in the 3rd he gives a description of Spain; in the 4th of Gaul and the British isles. The 5th and 6th contain an account of Italy and the neighbouring islands; the 7th, which is mutilated at the end, gives a full description of Germany, and the country of the Getæ, Illyricum, Tauric a, Cher sones us, and Epirus. The affairs of Greece and the adjacent islands are separately treated in the 8th, 9th, and 10th; and in the four next Asia, within mount Taurus; and in the 15th and 16th, Asia without Taurus, India, Persia, Syria, and Arabia; the last book gives an account of Egypt, Æthiopia, Carthage, and other places of Africa. Among the books of Strabo which have been lost, were historical commentaries. This celebrated geographer died A.D. 25. The best editions of his geography are those of Casaubon, folio, Paris, 1620; and of Amsterdam, 2  vols. , folio, 1707.――A Sicilian, so clear-sighted, that he could distinguish objects at the distance of 130 miles, with the same ease as if they had been near.