THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

MAY, 1811.

ART. I. Géographie de Strabon, traduite du Grec en Français. Tome premier. à Paris, de l'Imprimerie Impériale. An. XIII.

IN

N a former number we had occasion to make some remarks on Strabo's Geography, the true character of which seems to have been but little understood, and to have excited much less general attention than might be expected from a work containing such various and accurate information. We are happy therefore in the opportunity now afforded us of drawing the public attention once more to this subject; and although our notice will be chiefly directed to points of a subsidiary nature, yet whoever reflects on the intimate connection which these matters have with the whole body of the work, that they have exercised the minds of some of the most ingenious and learned scholars of the present age, and that in a right understanding of them are involved the accuracy and consistency of the system in all its parts, will not, we venture to hope, regard the length of our disquisition as disproportionate to their real value.

The translators indeed have themselves given a tolerably correct estimate of the original in the opening of their preface. They. observe that it contains nearly the whole history of knowledge from the time of Homer to that of Augustus: it treats of the origin of nations, of their change of abode, the foundation of cities, the establishment of empires and republics, and the history of the most distinguished men, and we find there an immense collection of facts which we should elsewhere seek in vain.' From this encomium however some deduction must be made. Much of the ancient history of mankind has been preserved to us by the writings of Herodotus, and has been lately exhibited with new and important lights unborrowed from Strabo, or from any ancient author. Few persons who have examined the subject will dispute the position of Major Rennell, that in the geography of Africa at least, the information of Strabo was much inferior to that of Herodotus-at the same time we must adinit his survey of Europe to be almost an entire accession of new matter, while that of

Egypt

Egypt and Asia far exceeds in accuracy and method the loose records of his predecessor.

It is remarkable that during a space of near 500 years, from the time of Herodotus to that of Strabo, so little should have been added to the science of geography. The conquests of the Romans westward did certainly bring them acquainted with parts of Europe hitherto little known; but in the east, neither the Macedonian nor the Roman expeditions seem to have brought much to light that was before unknown of the state of Asia; while in Africa, as Major Rennell justly observes, geography lost ground. In the course of this period indeed, many writers on the subject appeared; but whatever were their merits, (and the merits even of the most eminent among them, Eratosthenes, seem to be not highly rated by Strabo,) it is certain that they are all lost. We may collect indeed from a curious circumstance little known or regarded, that no complete or systematic work on geography at that time existed for it appears from two or three of Cicero's letters to Atticus, that he once entertained thoughts of writing a treatise himself on the subject. He was deterred however, he says, whenever he considered it, by the magnitude of the undertaking, and by perceiving how severely even Eratosthenes had been censured by the writers who succeeded him. In fact, he was probably restrained by a consciousness of his own incompetency in point of science, of which he makes a pretty broad confession to his friend: and whoever values the reputation of Cicero, cannot regret that it was never risked on a system of geography to be got up, as he himself hints that it was intended to be, during a short summer tour among his country houses in Italy.

:

It is not however merely to the respective character of the two individuals that we must attribute the inferiority of the geography of Herodotus, in all essential requisites, to that of Strabo. Much undoubtedly is owing to the manners and complexion of the times in which they respectively lived. The former came to the task with few materials supplied to his hands. Every thing was to be collected by his own industry, without the aid of previous history, without political documents, or political authority. The taste moreover and habits of the people for whom he wrote, which must ever have a powerful influence over the composition of any writer, demanded other qualities than rigid authenticity and a judicious selection of facts. It should be remembered that he was hardly yet emerged from the story-telling age; the pleasure of wondering had not yet been superseded by the pleasure of knowing; and the nine deities who give name to his books might be allowed to impart some share of their privilege of fiction, whereever sober truth was insufficient to complete or adorn his narrative. Before

Before the age of Augustus, however, an entire revolution had been effected in the intellectual habits and literary pursuits of men. The world was become in a manner, what it now is, a reading world. Books of every kind were to be had in every place. Accordingly, it became the chief business of writers who projected any extensive work to examine and compare what was already written, to weigh probabilities, to adjust and reconcile apparent differences, and to decide between contending authorities, as well as to collect and methodise a multitude of independent facts, and to mould them into one regular and consistent form.

It was not without a just sense of the magnitude and difficulty of his undertaking that Strabo engaged in this task, as is sufficiently proved by his own elaborate introduction. How many years were employed upon it, is not certain; but we are sure, from the incidental mention made in different passages of historical events widely distant from each other, that it occupied a considerable portion of his life; during the greatest part of which period he was engaged in a personal inspection of many provinces of the Roman empire, travelling often as the friend and companion of persons high in authority.

It is impossible indeed to read any of his larger descriptions without feeling the advantage possessed by an eye-witness over a mere compiler. The strong and expressive outlines which he draws, convey a lively idea not merely of the figure and dimensions, but of the surface and general character of extensive districts. These outlines are carefully filled up by a methodical and often minute survey of the whole region; marking distinctly its coast, its towns, rivers, and mountains; the produce of the soil, the condition and manners of the inhabitants, their origin, language, and traffic and in the more civilized parts of the world, in the states of Greece especially, we meet with continual information respecting persons and events, the memory of which is sacred to every one at all conversant with the writers of that extraordinary" people.

But it is not merely from the number and authenticity of the facts which it communicates that this work derives its value. Every page bears evidence of a philosophical and reflecting mind-a mind disciplined by science, and accustomed to trace the causes and connexion of things as well in the province of physical phenomena, as in the more intricate and varying system of human affairs. In this respect Strabo bears a strong resemblance to Polybius. But with the fondness of that historian for reflection and his steady love of truth, he has not copied the formality of his digressions which so often interrupt the flow of the history, and

$ 2

which

which would be yet more unsuited to a geographical work. The reasonings and reflections of Strabo are just those which would naturally be excited in a mind previously well informed, by the scenes over which he was travelling; but they never tempt him to lose sight of his main purpose, the collection and arrangement of facts. There is a gravity, a plainness, a sobriety, and good sense in all his remarks which constantly remind us that they are subordinate and incidental, suggested immediately by the occasion; and they are delivered with a tincture of literature, such as a well-educated man cannot fail of imparting to any subject.

On these accounts he would be entitled to the perusal of every scholar, even if the geographical information were less abundant and authentic than it really is. But the miserably corrupt state of the text seems to have discouraged translators as well as readers. Certain it is that translations of Strabo into the modern languages are fewer in number, and of a more recent date, than those of any ancient author, whose information has been so often appealed to as authoritative and curious. The Italian version by Buonacciuoli was indeed published in 1562; but that in German by Pentzel did not appear till 1775, and was not then completed; and a single book, that which relates to Spain, was translated from the Latin into Spanish, so late as 1787, by Don Juan Lopez, geographer to his most sacred Majesty, &c. &c. The French transla tion also promised by Brequigny in his edition of the three first books of Strabo, published in 1763, appears to have been in part, at least, executed, since it is once mentioned in a note by the present translators, but whether it was ever entirely executed does not appear.

The present version was undertaken by the order of Buonaparte, when First Consul of the French Republic. To Messieurs De la Porte Du Theil and Coray, were assigned the translation, with the critical and historical notes; and to M. Gosselin the formation of the maps, and the geographical illustrations. In their preface the translators have stated without reserve, but we must add also, without exaggeration, the difficulties of their attempt: as our attention, however, will now be chiefly given to the preliminary matter, we must defer to a future opportunity, when the entire work shall come before us, our account of the critical merits of this performance, although we shall not scruple here to subjoin a few remarks of a philological kind, which have occurred in the perusal of this volume, the only one which has yet reached us.

To the translation is prefixed a dissertation by M. Gosselin on the itinerary measures of the ancients. As this subject is new, and as Major Rennell's chapter on the Greek stade, has been denominated clear and satisfactory,' the reader will possibly indulge us

in a discussion, which will comprize many curious particulars in the history of ancient geography.

Strabo flourished during a considerable part of the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, and died in the twelfth year of the latter. He therefore lived prior to any arrangement of the distances on the globe by measures taken from degrees of longitude and latitude. But this writer, and his predecessors in the same branch of science, were not unacquainted with the practice of measuring the distance from the equator as from a fixed line, by which the comparatively northerly or southerly situations of places might be determined; nor were they ignorant of some methods by which the longitude, or distance of places to the east or west of each other, might be estimated. But it was reserved for Ptolemy, in the second century, to reduce these observations into a regular system, and to a tabular form, by which the situation of any one place, if correctly ascertained, might be compared with that of any other, and also with its distance from the equator, and from the first meridian, drawn through Ferro in the Canary or Fortunate Islands, as being the most westerly point of the earth known at that time.

The ancient geographers had scarcely any other means of determining distances, than actual mensuration: but it was necessary, in order to make the result of this knowledge communicable, to establish some common measure or standard to which other mensurations might be referred. The most ancient and received itinerary measure among the Greeks was the stade, which appears to have had a very rude origin. It is said to have been the invention of Hercules, and to be derived from an athletic exertion of his own, as it comprehended the distance which he was able to run without taking breath. This he established as the measure of the length of the auλos, or foot course, at the Olympic games, and from the respect in which these exercises were held, the measure became an itinerary computation. This distance the hero, who instituted it, measured again by the length of his foot, which he found equal to one six-hundredth part of the course. Such is the origin both of the olympic foot, and the olympic stade, the former of which exceeded the common or Roman foot in the same proportion as the foot of Hercules exceeded that of ordinary men, which excess was supposed to be in the proportion of 25 to 24. But the stade was not the only itinerary measare in use among the Greeks, or rather among such as are specified by the Greek writers. Herodotus mentions the parasanga and the schoenus, and speaks of both as multiples of the stade, and as used conjointly with it. Xenophon computes the march of the auxiliaries from Sardis to Babylon, a journey of 76 days, and of more than 14,000 stades, by parasangs only. Strabo mentions