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Strabo

9 quotes

“The Aegean sea washes Greece on two sides: first, the side that faces towards the east and stretches from Sunium, towards the north as far as the Thermaean Gulf and Thessaloniceia, a Macedonian city...; and secondly, the side that faces towards the south, I mean the Macedonian country, extending from Thessaloniceia as far as the Strymon.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book 7, ch. 7, secs. 4-5 (tr. H. L. Jones, vol. 3, 1924)
“There remain of Europe, first, Macedonia and the part of Thrace that are contiguous to it and extend as far as Byzantium; secondly, Greece; and thirdly, the Islands that are close by. Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece, yet now, since I am following the nature and shape of the place geographically, I have decided to classify it apart from the rest of Greece and to join it with that part of Thrace which borders on it and extends as far as the mouth of the Euxine and the Propontis.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 7, fr. 9 (tr. H. L. Jones, vol. 3, 1924)
“Three classes inhabited the city (Alexandria in Egypt): first the Aegyptian or native stock of people, who were quick-tempered and not inclined to civil life; and secondly the mercenary class, who were severe and numerous and intractable...; and, third, the tribe of the Alexandrians, who also were not distinctly inclined to civil life, and for the same reasons, but still they were better than those others, for even though they were a mixed people, still they were Greeks by origin and mindful of the customs common to the Greeks.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 17, ch. 1, secs. 12-13 (tr. H. L. Jones, vol. 8, 1932)
“The Gauls are universally madly fond of war, hot in temper, and quick to fight; in all other respects simple, and void of malice. Hence, when provoked, they march multitudinously, openly, and incautiously straight against the enemy, so as to be easily out-generalled; since they may be drawn on to engage where and when one chooses, and for any cause, being ever ready for battle, even though armed only with their own natural strength and audacity. Yet are they easily persuaded to useful employments, and susceptible of culture and literary instruction. Presuming on their gigantic build and numbers, they soon collect in large multitudes, of their own free-will and accord, and at once take side with the injured party. [Συναγανακτοῦντες τοῖς ἀδικεῖσθαι δοκοῦσιν ἀεὶ τῶν πλησίον.]”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book 4, 195; in Jules Michelet, History of France, tr. G. H. Smith, vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1882), p. 33. Compare: Diodorus Siculus, 5.28
“What is now called Macedonia was in earlier times called Emathia. And it took its present name from Macedon, one of its early chieftains. And there was also a city emathia close to the sea. Now a part of this country was taken and held by certain of the Epeirotes and the Illyrians, but most of it by the Bottiaei and the Thracians. The Bottiaei came from Crete originally, so it is said, along with Botton as chieftain. As for the Thracians, the Pieres inhabited Pieria and the region about Olympus; the Paeones, the region on both sides of the Axius River, which on that account is called Amphaxitis; the Edoni and Bisaltae, the rest of the country as far as the Strymon. Of these two peoples the latter are called Bisaltae alone, whereas a part of the Edoni are called Mygdones, a part Edones, and a part Sithones. But of all these tribes the Argeadae, as they are called, established themselves as masters, and also the Chalcidians of Euboea; for the Chalcidians of Euboea also came over to the country of the Sithones and jointly peopled about thirty cities in it, although later on the majority of them were ejected and came together into one city, Olynthus; and they were named the Thracian Chalcidians.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 7, fr. 11 (tr. H. L. Jones, vol. 3, 1924)
“I might almost say that the Peloponnesus is the acropolis of Greece as a whole;⁠ for, apart from the splendour and power of the tribes that have lived in it, the very topography of Greece, diversified as it is by gulfs, many capes, and, what are the most significant, large peninsulas that follow one another in succession, suggests such hegemony for it. The first of the peninsulas is the Peloponnesus which is closed by an isthmus forty stadia in width. The second includes the first; and its isthmus extends in width from Pagae in Megaris to Nisaea, the naval station of the Megarians, the distance across being one hundred and twenty stadia from sea to sea. The third likewise includes the second; and its isthmus extends in width from the recess of the Crisaean Gulf as far as Thermopylae — the imaginary straight line, about five hundred and eight stadia in length, enclosing within the peninsula the whole of Boeotia and cutting obliquely Phocis and the country of the Epicnemidians.⁠ The fourth is the peninsula whose isthmus extends from the Ambracian Gulf through Oeta⁠ and Trachinia to the Maliac Gulf and Thermopylae — the isthmus being about eight hundred stadia in width. But there is another isthmus, more than one thousand stadia in width, extending from the same Ambracian Gulf through the countries of the Thessalians and the Macedonians to the recess of the Thermaean Gulf. So then, the succession of the peninsulas suggests a kind of order, and not a bad one, for me to follow in my description.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 8, ch. 1, sec. 3 (tr. H. L. Hones, vol. 4, 1927). E. A. Freeman, The Historical Geography of Europe (1881), vol. 1, ch. 2: "Greece indeed and the neighbouring lands form, as was long ago remarked by Strabo, a series…
“has produced famous men: in early times, Pittacus, one of the Seven Wise Men; and the poet Alcaeus, and his brother Antimenidas, who, according to Alcaeus, won a great struggle when fighting on the side of the Babylonians, and rescued them from their toils by killing "a warrior, the royal wrestler" (as he says), "who was but one short of five cubits in height." And along with these flourished also Sappho, a marvellous woman (θαύμαστόν τι χρῆμα); for in all the time of which we have record I do not know of the appearance of any woman who could rival Sappho, even in a slight degree, in the matter of poetry.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 13, ch. 2, sec. 3 (tr. H. L. Jones, vol. 6, 1929)
“The Sidonians according to tradition, are skilled in many beautiful arts, as the poet [Homer] also points out, and besides this they are philosophers in the science of astronomy and arithmetic, having begun their studies with practical calculations and with night sailings, for each of these branches of knowledge concerns the merchant and the shipowner; as for example, geometry was invented, it is said, from the measurement of lands which is made necessary by the Nile when it confounds the boundaries at the time of its overflows. This science, then, is believed to have come to the Greeks from the Aegyptians; astronomy and arithmetic from the Phoenicians; and at present by far the greatest store of knowledge in every other branch of philosophy is to be had from these cities. And if one must believe Poseidonius, the ancient dogma about atoms originated with Mochus, a Sidonian, born before the Trojan times. However, let us dismiss things ancient. In my time there have been famous philosophers from Sidon; Boethus, with whom I studied the Aristotelian philosophy, and his brother Diodotus; and from Tyre, Antipater, and, a little before my time, Apollonius, who published a tabulated account of the philosophers of the school of Zeno and of their books.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 16, ch. 2, sec. 24 (tr. H. L. Jones, vol. 7, 1930)
“An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called the Lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judaea with a large body of people who worshipped the Divinity. He declared and taught that the Egyptians and Africans entertained erroneous sentiments, in representing the Divinity under the likeness of wild beasts and cattle of the field; that the Greeks also were in error in making images of their god after the human form. For God [said he] may be this one thing [shema] which encompasses us all, land and sea, which we call heaven, or the universe, or the nature of things....By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands.”
Strabo (63 BC–23) said by 23 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 16, ch. 2, secs. 35, 36 (tr. H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer, vol. 3, 1857)