XII.] EXTENT OF HIS TRAVELS. 241
rather than by any desire on his part to prosecute researches, or
to verify the statements of former writers. In Asia Minor he was
well acquainted with the extreme eastern and western districts of
the country—with Pontus, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, which were
within easy reach of his home at Amasia; and with Western Phrygia,
Lydia, Ionia, and Caria, which he had visited either at the time
of his education at Nysa or on subsequent occasions. Egypt he
had explored at his leisure and thoroughly, as might be expected
from the opportunities offered by his residence at Alexandria, and
from his having ascended the Nile as far as the First Cataract
with Aelius Gallus. In Italy he had become acquainted with the
coast-towns of Etruria as far north as the Bay of Luna, and was
familiar with Latium and the neighbourhood of the Bay of Naples:
he knew also the line of the Appian Way with the ports of Brun-
disium and Tarentum, and part of the eastern coast of Sicily, of
which he would see something when on his way from Rome to
Alexandria. Of the rest of the world, however, he had very little
knowledge from personal observation. He could hardly have
visited even the coast of Syria, otherwise he would not have failed
to touch at Tyre; yet, in describing the many-storeyed houses
of that city, which, he says, exceeded in height those in Rome, he
quotes from other authorities1. In Greece there is no clear proof
that he stopped at any place except Corinth; and the fulness of
detail with which he has delineated that town contrasts strongly
with his notices of the rest of the country2. The Adriatic coast
of Italy was also a terra incognita to him; and in consequence of
this his account of Ravenna, in particular, is defective, for he
relies on earlier authorities, and omits all notice of the great works
which were carried out there by the orders of Augustus5. The
remoter regions of the world, such as Spain or Babylonia, he does
not profess to have visited. Still, though Strabo cannot be spoken
of as a great traveller in the same sense as Posi-
donius, it would be a mistake to suppose that his
journeys were of small importance to him as a derived from
writer on geography. In reality he learnt from
them to take a wide view of his subject, to interest himself in a
1 16.a. «$. * 8.6. 30—33.
* M* 7*
T* X6