This article is about the Greek geographer. For other people called "Strabo", see Strabo (disambiguation).

The Greek geographer Strabo in a 16th-century engraving

Strabo,^[1],^{[pronunciation?]}, also written Strabon (Greek: Στράβων; 64/63 BC – ca. AD 24), was a Greek geographer, philosopher and historian.

Life[link]

Title page from Isaac Casaubon's 1620 edition of Geographica

Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey),^[2] a city that he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea. His mother was Georgian.^[3] Pontus had recently fallen to the Roman Republic, and although politically he was a proponent of Roman imperialism, Strabo belonged on his mother's side to a prominent family whose members had held important positions under the resisting regime of King Mithridates VI of Pontus.^[4]

Strabo, Nuremberg Chronicle.

Strabo's life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and time spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae,^[5] after which point there is little record of his proceedings until 17 AD.

The Statue of Strabon at his homeland, Amasya/Turkey, along the Iris River

It is not known precisely when Strabo's Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 AD, others around 18 AD. Last dateable mention is given to the death in 23 AD of Juba II, king of Maurousia (Mauretania), who is said to have died "just recently".^[6] He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, not always consistently. On the presumption that "recently" means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next (24 AD), when he died.

The first of Strabo's major works, Historical Sketches (Historica hypomnemata), written while he was in Rome (ca. 20 BC), is nearly completely lost. Meant to cover the history of the known world from the conquest of Greece by the Romans, Strabo quotes it himself and other classical authors mention that it existed, although the only surviving document is a fragment of papyrus now in possession of the University of Milan (renumbered [Papyrus] 46).

Education[link]

Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialties throughout his early life^[7] at different stops along his Mediterranean travels. His first chapter of education took place in Nysa (modern Sultanhisar, Turkey) under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, who had formerly taught the sons of the very same Roman general who had taken over Pontus.^[8][9] Aristodemus was the head of two schools of rhetoric and grammar, one in Nysa and one in Rhodes, the former of the two cities possessing a distinct intellectual curiosity of Homeric literature and the interpretation of epics. Strabo was an admirer of Homer's poetry, perhaps a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus.^[10]

Around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, a highly respected tutor in Augustus's court. Despite Xenarchus's Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations.^[11] In Rome, he also learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus.^[12][13] Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, a fact obviously significant, considering Strabo's future contributions to the field. The final noteworthy mentor to Strabo is Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus endowed to Strabo three important items: his philosophy, his knowledge, and his contacts. Unlike the Aristotelian Xenarchus and Tyrannion that preceded him in teaching Strabo, Athenodorus was Stoic in mindset, almost certainly the source of Strabo's diversion from the philosophy of his former mentors. Secondly, from his own experiences, he provided Strabo with information of regions of the empire that would never have told him otherwise.

[edit] The Geography

Map of the world according to Strabo

Strabo is most famous for his 17-volume work Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era.^[6]

Map of Europe according to Strabo

Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its contemporary antiquity, a multitude of copies are found throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469. The first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice.^[14] Isaac Casaubon, classical scholar and editor of Greek texts, provided the first critical edition in 1587.

Although Strabo cited the antique Greek astronomers Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, acknowledging their astronomical and mathematical efforts towards geography, he claimed that a descriptive approach was more practical, such that his works were designed for statesmen who were more anthropologically than numerically concerned with the character of countries and regions.

As such, Geographica provides a valuable source of information on the ancient world, especially when this information is corroborated by other sources.

Within the books of Geographica is a map of Europe (see image at right).

Strabo is pro-Roman politically but culturally reserves primacy to Greece.^[15]

Geology[link]

As quoted from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology:

Strabo... enters largely, in the Second Book of his Geography, into the opinions of Eratosthenes and other Greeks on one of the most difficult problems in geology, viz., by what causes marine shells came to be plentifully buried in the earth at such great elevations and distances from the sea.

He notices, amongst others, the explanation of Xanthus the Lyclian, who said that the seas had once been more extensive, and that they had afterwards been partially dried up, as in his own time many lakes, rivers, and wells in Asia had failed during a season of drought. Treating this conjecture with merited disregard, Strabo passes on to the hypothesis of Strato, the natural philosopher, who had observed that the quantity of mud brought down by rivers into the Euxine was so great, that its bed must be gradually raised, while the rivers still continued to pour in an undiminished quantity of water. He therefore conceived that, originally, when the Euxine was an inland sea, its level had by this means become so much elevated that it burst its barrier near Byzantium, and formed a communication with the Propontis, and this partial drainage had already, he supposed, converted the left side into marshy ground, and that, at last, the whole would be choked up with soil. So, it was argued, the Mediterranean had once opened a passage for itself by the Columns of Hercules into the Atlantic, and perhaps the abundance of sea-shells in Africa, near the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, might also be the deposit of some former inland sea, which had at length forced a passage and escaped.

But Strabo rejects this theory as insufficient to account for all the phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only beginning to appreciate. 'It is not,' he says, 'because the lands covered by seas were originally at different altitudes, that the waters have risen, or subsided, or receded from some parts and inundated others. But the reason is, that the same land is sometimes raised up and sometimes depressed, and the sea also is simultaneously raised and depressed, so that it either overflows or returns into its own place again. We must therefore ascribe the cause to the ground, either to that ground which is under the sea, or to that which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that which lies beneath the sea, for this is more moveable, and, on account of its humidity, can be altered with great celerity. It is proper,' he observes in continuation, 'to derive our explanations from things which are obvious, and in some measure of daily occurrence, such as deluges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea; for the last raise up the sea also, and when the same lands subside again, they occasion the sea to be let down. And it is not merely the small, but the large islands also, and not merely the islands, but the continents, which can be lifted up together with the sea; and both large and small tracts may subside, for habitations and cities, like Bure, Bizona, and many others, have been engulfed by earthquakes.'

In another place, this learned geographer [Strabo], in alluding to the tradition that Sicily had been separated by a convulsion from Italy, remarks, that at present the land near the sea in those parts was rarely shaken by earthquakes, since there were now open orifices whereby fire and ignited matters and waters escaped; but formerly, when the volcanoes of Etna, the Lipari Islands, Ischia, and others, were closed up, the imprisoned fire and wind might have produced far more vehement movements. The doctrine, therefore, that volcanoes are safety valves, and that the subterranean convulsions are probably most violent when first the volcanic energy shifts itself to a new quarter, is not modern.^[16]

The very first written definition/discussion on the fossil formation (mentioning Nummulite quoted from A.M. Celâl Şengör).

One extraordinary thing which I saw at the pyramids must not be omitted. Heaps of stones from the quarries lie in front of the pyramids. Among these are found pieces which in shape and size resemble lentils. Some contain substances like grains half peeled. These, it is said, are the remnants of the workmen's food converted into stone; which is not probable. For at home in our country (Amasia), there is a long hill in a plain, which abounds with pebbles of a porus stone, resembling lentils. The pebbles of the sea-shore and of rivers suggest somewhat of the same difficulty [respecting their origin]; some explanation may indeed be found in the motion [to which these are subject] in flowing waters, but the investigation of the above fact presents more difficulty. I have said elsewhere, that in sight of the pyramids, on the other side in Arabia, and near the stone quarries from which they are built, is a very rocky mountain, called the Trojan mountain; beneath it there are caves, and near the caves and the river a village called Troy, an ancient settlement of the captive Trojans who had accompanied Menelaus and settled there.^[17]

The very first written definition/discussion of volcanisim (Effusive eruption) observed at Katakekaumenē (modern Kula, Western Turkey) until Pliny the Younger witnessed to the eruption of Vesuvius on 24 August 79 ADPompeii

Karadivlit Scoria Cone and AA type basaltic fissure lava flow in Katakekaumenē (modern Kula, Turkey)

…There are no trees here, but only the vineyards where they produce the Katakekaumene wines which are by no means inferior from any of the wines famous for their quality. The soil is covered with ashes, and black in color as if the mountainous and rocky country was made up of fires. Some assume that these ashes were the result of thunderbolts and sub‐ terranean explosions, and do not doubt that the legendary story of Typhon takes place in this region. Ksanthos adds that the king of this region was a man called Arimus. However, it is not reasonable to accept that the whole country was burned down at a time as a result of such an event rather than as a result of a fire bursting from underground whose source has now died out. Three pits are called “Physas” and separated by forty stadia from each other. Above these pits, there are hills formed by the hot masses burst out from the ground as estimated by a logical reasoning. Such type of soil is very convenient for viniculture, just like the Katanasoil which is covered with ashes and where the best wines are still produced abundantly. Some writers concluded by looking at these places that there is a good reason for calling Dionysus by the name (“Phrygenes”)”^[18]

Notes[link]

Editions[link]

• Meineke, Augustus (Editor) (MDCCCLXXVII (1877)). Strabonis Geographica. Lipsiae: B.G. Teubneri. 
• Strabo (1852). Gustav Kramer. ed. Strabonis Geographica. Recens. G. Kramer. Ed. minor. http://books.google.com/books?id=BXICAAAAQAAJ. 
• Strabo's Geography in 3 volumes translated by H.C. Hamilton, ed. H.G. Bohn, 1854-1857 (vol 1, vol 2, vol 3 at Google Books)
• Stefan Radt, ed. (2010). Strabons Geographika, Band 9: Epitome und Chrestomathie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 

Bibliography[link]

• "Biography of Strabo". Tufts. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0004%3Aid%3Dstrabo. 
• "Strabo". Encyclopædia Britannica (15th ed.). 1998. pp. 296–297. 
• Diller, A. (1975). The Textual Tradition of Strabo’s Geography. Amsterdam. 
• Dueck, Daniela (2000). Strabo of Amasia: Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome. New York: Routledge. 
• Dueck, D., H. Lindsay, and S. Pothecary, ed. (2005). Strabo's Cultural Geography: The Making of a Kolossourgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
• Lindberg, David C. (2008). The Beginnings of Western Science The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory A.D. 1450 (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Strabo

• Electronic copy of the Geography (incomplete)
• Biography of Strabo

John Reed
Reed in 2007
Born	(1969-02-07)February 7, 1969 TriBeCa, New York City
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation	novelist
Website
http://www.johnreed.org

John Reed (born February 7, 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of four novels: A Still Small Voice (2000), Snowball's Chance (2002) with a preface by Alexander Cockburn, The Whole (2005), and All the World's a Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare (2008). His fifth book, Tales of Woe (2010), is a collection of twenty-five stories, chronicling true stories of abject misery.

Biography[link]

Born in 1969 in New York City, Reed is the son of artist David Reed and Judy Rifka.^[1] He attended Hampshire College, and received a Masters in Fine Art in Creative Writing from Columbia University.^[2] He teaches at The New School.

Reed was an early contributor to, and subsequently an editor with, Open City, a New York literary journal published by Robert Bingham, who later founded the book series.

Works[link]

He is affiliated with the New York Press and The Brooklyn Rail. "Americans are extremely sophisticated in terms of narrative forms," said Reed in an interview. "We see it in commercials, we see it on TV, we see it in movies. But the narrative forms we're talking about are three acts, five acts, depending on how you want to look at it. They're all based on a Christian model of sin, suffering, redemption; which is not a large model."^[3]

A Still Small Voice[link]

A Still Small Voice (Delacorte 2000, Delta 2001), Reed’s first novel, is a historical novel based on the life of a girl growing up in Kentucky from 1850-1870.

Snowball's Chance[link]

Snowball's Chance (Roof Books 2002/2003), Reed’s second novel was a controversial send-up of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and ended in a cataclysmic attack on the “Twin Mills” (reminiscent of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center). It became a bestseller in the field of books by independent literary publishers.^[4]

The Whole, or, Duh Whole[link]

Wikinews has related news: John Reed on Orwell, God, self-destruction and the future of writing

John Reed discusses politics after 9/11 and Reed's take on Orwell's neoconservativism.

Reed between BOMB magazine's senior editor Monica de la Torre and editor-in-chief Betsy Sussler.

The Whole, Reed’s third novel, parodied MTV and was released in 2005 by MTV Books (Simon & Schuster). The novel described a gigantic hole that appears in the middle of the country, which engulfs four states.

All the World's a Grave[link]

Reed, in a new work, returns to the overhaul of canonical English writers in All the World's a Grave, fall 2008, Penguin Books. The work, subtitled "A New Play by William Shakespeare", is a tragedy in five acts, a "mash-up" constructed of lines drawn from five Shakespeare tragedies and one Shakespeare history; Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo & Juliet and Henry V. In the "literary trick" (as described by Page Six of The New York Post) Shakespeare's lines are rearranged into a wholly new story, in which Prince Hamlet of Denmark goes to war to claim his bride and the daughter of King Lear, Juliet. Upon a triumphant return home, Hamlet discovers that his mother has murdered his father, and married Macbeth. Visited by his father's ghost, and goaded by the opportunistic Lieutenant Iago, Hamlet is driven mad by the erroneous belief that Juliet is having an affair with General Romeo.^[5]

References[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Reed (novelist)

External links[link]

• John Reed's website
• All the World's a Grave, book website.
• Kill the beavers!, The Daily Telegraph, November 22, 2002.
• John Reed: Saint George and the Damn Truth, Moby Lives, Nove,ber 10, 2003.
• John Reed: The Whole, an excerpt, Brooklyn Rail, January 2005.
• Dinitia Smith: A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell, The New York Times, November 25, 2002.
• Cathy Young: Blaming the Victim, Reason.com, December 3, 2002.
• Andrea Scrima: Review of Tales of Woe, Rumpus, November 16, 2010.
• Interview with Arthur Phillips on rewriting Shakespeare

Frank Collison (born February 14, 1950) is an American actor known to television audiences as the hapless telegrapher Horace Bing in the series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Early life[link]

Collison was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Peg, a publicist, director, and English teacher, and John Collison, a speech therapist, actor, and writer.^[1] Collison played his first role as a six month old mascot at The Tent Theatre in Granville, Ohio.^[2] His mother directed him in a number of plays as a youth in Virginia and Ohio. When he was a young boy, Frank assisted his father touring with his one-man Abraham Lincoln show. His father was chosen to play Lincoln for the centennial celebration of Lincoln's first inauguration in Washington, DC; Frank played the young Tad Lincoln.

Career[link]

Stage[link]

Collison trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, earning a BA in theatre from the San Francisco State University. He then helped to establish a summer theatre company in the Sierra Nevadas, and went on to gain an MFA in acting at University of California, San Diego. Between acting jobs he has worked as a substitute teacher, diaper service dispatcher and forest firefighter. Appearing in over 150 productions, he has worked off Broadway and in regional theatres in California, Boston, and Denver. His theatrical roles have been as varied as "Jacob Marley" in A Christmas Carol to "Miss Havisham" in Great Expectations to "Puck" in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Collison is a founding member of the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California,^[2] which has won over 25 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards.

Film[link]

Collison's films include The Blob, Alien Nation, Wild at Heart, Mobsters, The Last Boy Scout, Buddy, Diggstown, My Summer Story, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Majestic, The Whole Ten Yards, Hidalgo, The Village, Suspect Zero, The Happening and Hesher.

Television[link]

Frank is best known to TV audiences as Horace Bing, the bumbling telegraph operator, on CBS's long running series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. His numerous other television appearances have included guest-starring roles on Monk, HBO's Carnivàle, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Seventh Heaven, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, and,Good Luck Charlie.

Personal life[link]

Collison lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the actress Laura Gardner, and his three children.^[2] He remains active in theatre while pursuing a film career.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Frank Collison at the Internet Movie Database
• Frank Collison's Website

Angelo Debarre (born in Saint-Denis on August 19, 1962) is a Romani (Gypsy) guitarist in the manouche jazz style.

He began playing at age 8 and in 1984 started his first group, the Angelo Debarre Quintet. In 1985 they were engaged by Serge Camps at his Parisian café La Roue Fleurie, where Angelo was discovered.

Debarre has performed in several significant Romani and jazz festivals, particularly Birdland's "Django festival."^[1] He also recorded Mémoires: Memories of Django with Tchavolo Schmitt.

Discography[link]

• Gypsy Guitars (1988) Hot Club Records/Jon Larsen
• La Roue Fleurie (1991) Hot Club Records/Jon Larsen
• Caprice (1998) Hot Club Records/Jon Larsen
• Romano Baschepen (1999) Al Sur/NordSud
• Portrait of Angelo Debarre (2002) Hot Club Records/Jon Larsen
• Come Into My Swing (2003) with Ludovic Beier, Le Chant Du Monde
• Angelo Is Back In Town (2004) Hot Club Records/Jon Larsen
• Entre Amis (2005) with Ludovic Beier, Le Chant Du Monde
• Paroles de Swing (2008) with Ludovic Beier, Le Chant Du Monde
• Trio tout à cordes (2008) Le Chant Du Monde
• Live in Le Quecumbar (2010) with the Angelo Debarre Quartet, Fremeaux & Assoc.
• Gypsy Unity (2010) Le Chant Du Monde

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site of Angelo Debarre (English version)