Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/15

STRABO’S GEOGRAPHY.

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BOOK I.

INTRODUCTION.

SUMMARY.

That geographical investigation is not inconsistent with philosophy.—That Homer gives proof of it throughout his poems.—That they who first wrote on the science have omitted much, or given disjointed, defective, false, or inconsistent accounts.—Proofs and demonstrations of the correctness of this statement, with general heads containing a summary description of the disposition of the whole habitable earth.—Credit to be attached to the probabilities and evident proofs that in many regions the land and sea have been shifted, and exchanged places with each other.

CHAPTER I.

1.^[1] If the scientific investigation of any subject be the proper avocation of the philosopher, Geography, the science of which we propose to treat, is certainly entitled to a high place; and this is evident from many considerations. They who first ventured to handle the matter were distinguished men. Homer, Anaximander the Milesian, and Hecatæus, (his fellow-citizen according to Eratosthenes,) Democritus, Eudoxus, Dicæarchus, Ephorus, with many others, and after these Erastosthenes, Polybius, and Posidonius, all of them philosophers.

Nor is the great learning, through which alone this subject can be approached, possessed by any but a person acquainted with both human and divine things,^[2] and these attainments constitute what is called philosophy. In addition to its vast importance in regard to social life, and the art of government, Geography unfolds to us the celestial phenomena, acquaints us

1. The chapters and sectional divisions of Kramer’s edition of the Greek text have been generally followed in this translation.
2. τὰ θεία καὶ ἀνθρώπεια, “the productions of nature and art.”