240 STRABO. [CHAP.

that Strabo imbibed a taste for that subject from him. The
and places of remainder of his long life— he seems to have been
Residence. g4 years Of age at the time of his death, or even
older— was passed for the most part either in Rome or in Asia
Minor. The duration of these sojourns we have no means
of determining; but his mention of buildings of recent erection
in Rome, and of objects newly introduced there, which he had
himself seen, proves that he visited the capital at intervals;
and, on the other hand, he is shewn to have returned to Asia
Minor, both by his allusions to periods of residence in certain of
its cities, and by his exact and observant descriptions of places
in various provinces of that region, which imply that he was
acquainted with them as a grown-up man. We also know from
his own testimony that he dwelt for a long period in Alexandria;
and the date of this can be approximately fixed, for it was then
that he made the expedition through Egypt, which was the most
considerable of his journeys, in the company of his friend and
patron Aelius Gallus, who was prefect of the country, and this
expedition seems to have taken place in 25—248.0.

Widely different opinions have been held as to the extent of
Strabo's travels. He claimed for himself that he
journeyed in different directions as far as any

other writer on geography — that is to say, from
Armenia to the western part of Etruria, and from the Euxine to
the confines of Aethiopia1 ; and this may have been literally true.
But before we concede to a person the title of a great traveller, it
is necessary to estimate the extensiveness of the journeys which
were carried out by him within a certain area, and the scientific
spirit of research in which they were undertaken. In Strabo's
case the conclusion to which we are brought by an examination of
Almost the evidence which his work affords as to the places
Mfcf tedE°Asia wki°h ke rioted is that except in Asia Minor, in
and central Egypt, and in Central Italy, he did not deviate far
Italy" from the route which he would naturally take in
passing to and from his home and the great centres of civilisation
in which he resided at different intervals. His journeys into
distant lands were determined by the circumstances of his life,
1 Strabo, 3.5. n.