-- vi --
duties, however, added to his anxious examination of
every thing which tended to illustrate his author, prevented his proceeding with much speed; and it was
only after the lapse of three years that he had reached
the end of the sixth book. In the mean time it transpired
that Mr. W. Falconer, son of the editor of the Oxford
edition of the Greek text, had, after several years of
care and attention, produced a very excellent translation, meaning to publish it. Under the circumstances
it was deemed advisable to amalgamate the rival undertakings, and it is a source of gratification to the publisher that the respective translators were each so well
satisfied with the labours of the other, that they assented readily to his proposal of associating their names.
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.
H. G. B.
PREFACE.
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. note He
lived during the reign of Augustus, and the earlier part of the
reign of Tiberius; for in the 13th book note 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.
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.
The only information which we can obtain of the personal
history of Strabo is to be collected from the scanty references
made to himself in the course of this work; note for although a
writer of the Augustan age, his name and his works appear
