XII.] VARIOUS ESTIMATES OF IT. 249
to it till the time of Stephanus of Byzantium, towards the end
of the fifth century, by whom it is frequently cited1. Admiration
During the middle ages, however, exactly the of it in the
opposite of this was the case. To the writers of l e ses"
that time he was known as //# geographer, and Eustathius
in particular frequently quotes him by that title. Again,
in modern days a great discrepancy of opinion has existed
with regard to Strabo's merits. Some authorities, among whom
Mullenhoff is the most conspicuous, have treated
him as a dull, unintelligent compiler. Others, who Estimates,
refrain from passing so sweeping a condemnation,
regard his Geography as little more than a new edition of the
work of Eratosthenes. This view, however, is sufficiently dis-
proved by a comparison of the size of the two treatises, for
whereas Strabo's ran to the length of seventeen books, that of
Eratosthenes was comprised in three, and only a portion of the
last of these was devoted to descriptive geography. Indeed,
however much Strabo may have been indebted to others for his
materials, his independence of judgment is shewn by his careful-
ness in comparing his authorities and balancing their statements,
and by the trouble which he takes to cast the facts which he
collects in a mould of his own. A more impartial, though at
the same time a laudatory, estimate is furnished by one whose
encyclopaedic studies specially qualified him to pass judgment
on such a subject—Alexander von Humboldt "The gifted
geographer of Amasia," he says, " does not possess the numerical
accuracy of Hipparchus, or the mathematical and geographical
information of Ptolemy; but his work surpassed all other geo-
graphical labours of antiquity by the diversity of the subjects, and
the grandeur of the composition8."
As the object of Strabo's work was to furnish a survey of the
whole of the habitable world that was known in i^ts ^
his day, the extent of the area which it included Strabo's
and the limits within which it was restricted can urvey'
be sufficiently inferred from what we have already seen of the
knowledge of the subject which was possessed by the Greeks
1 Bunbuiy, Hist. ofAnc. <7«gr., a, pp. 334, 335.
* Cosmos (Otte's trans.), vol. 2. p. 555.