A lively new translation of Strabo’s complete Geography—an encyclopedic guide to the ancient world of the first century CE—connecting it with the world of the twenty-first century

Strabo’s Geography is an encyclopedic description of the ancient world as it appeared to a contemporary observer in the early Roman empire. Information about taming elephants, collecting saffron, producing asphalt, and practicing yoga is found alongside accounts of prostitution, volcanic activity, religious festivals, and obscure eastern dynasties—all set against the shifting backdrop of political power in the first century CE. Traveling around the Mediterranean, Strabo gathered knowledge of places and people, supplementing his firsthand experiences with an immense amount of reading to create a sweeping chronicle that attempts to answer the implicit questions “Who are we?” and “Where do we come from?” Sarah Pothecary’s new translation of Strabo’s complete Geography makes this important work more accessible, relevant, and enjoyable than ever before.

Conveying the informal, lively, and almost journalistic style of Strabo’s Greek, this translation connects the ancient and modern worlds by providing modern names and maps for places mentioned in the text, a generous page layout, and marginal notes, allowing readers to appreciate Strabo’s work directly and immediately. The result mimics what Strabo was doing two thousand years ago—relating the rapidly changing present of his original readers to their own ancient past.

A remarkably modern translation of a revealing window on the ancient world, this is essential reading for anyone interested in how we look at both antiquity and the world today.

"Innovative . . . . Ms. Pothecary’s lived-in world feels both familiar and fresh, poetically charged and crisply defined."---Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal
"Stupendous. . . .A modern miracle for the modern world: everything you need to make sense of Strabo, before your very eyes!"---Peter Jones, Classics for All
"[An] elegant translation. . . . Sarah Pothecary is Strabo's rescuer."---Peter Stothard, Times Literary Supplement
"Sarah Pothecary’s new translation is lively, almost journalistic and conversational in tone, making the text appealing to a new generation of readers…a monumental work…makes for a highly accessible and welcome rereading of this eclectic, yet essential, guide from antiquity." * Ancient History Magazine *
"Eminently readable."---James Romm, London Review of Books
"A remarkably modern translation of a revealing window on the ancient world, this is essential reading for anyone interested in how we look at both antiquity and the world today." * Progressive Geographies *
"[A] wonderful new edition. . . . Sarah Pothecary's organization of the text, her translation, explanatory notes and references in the wide margins and her indexes constitute a mighty labour of scholarly love."---Sean Sheehan, The Prisma

Sarah Pothecary is an independent classics scholar who earned a BA at the University of Oxford and a PhD at the University of Toronto. She has written extensively about Strabo’s life and work and is a coeditor of Strabo’s Cultural Geography.