Ancient geography: The discovery of the world in classical Greece and Rome

Abstract

Before Columbus there was Eratosthenes: 'inventor' of the discipline of geography as it is known today. There was Alexander the Great: the man who sought to reach the very ends of the known world and whose empire spanned three continents. And there was Strabo: author of the Geographica, a 17-volume encyclopaedia of geographical knowledge which expounded the definition, history and mathematics of geography. In this, the first major study of ancient geography and geographers to be published in English for over 60 years, Duane W. Roller offers a comprehensive account of these, and the many other, ancient pioneers and the frontiers that defined their world. Ranging from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, Ancient Geography: The Discovery of the World in Classical Greece and Rome is the definitive guide to how the triumphs and the errors of antiquity laid the foundations for millennia of voyaging and exploration.