The ecumene in prose.

Strabo (ca. 64 BC to ca. AD 25), an Asiatic Greek of Amasia in Pontus, studied at Nysa and after 44 BC at Rome. He became a keen traveler who saw a large part of Italy, various near eastern regions including the Black Sea, various parts of Asia Minor, Egypt as far as Ethiopia, and parts of Greece. He was a long time in Alexandria where he no doubt studied mathematics, astronomy, and history.

Strabo’s historical work is lost, but his most important Geography in seventeen books has survived. After two introductory books, numbers 3 and 4 deal with Spain and Gaul, 5 and 6 with Italy and Sicily, 7 with north and east Europe, 8–10 with Greek lands, 11–14 with the main regions of Asia and with Asia Minor, 15 with India and Iran, 16 with Assyria, Babylonia, Syria, and Arabia, 17 with Egypt and Africa. In outline he follows the great mathematical geographer Eratosthenes, but adds general descriptions of separate countries including physical, political, and historical details. A sequel to his historical memoirs, Geography is planned apparently for public servants rather than students—hence the accounts of physical features and of natural products. On the mathematical side it is an invaluable source of information about Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Posidonius.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Strabo is in eight volumes.

A gathering of poetic blossoms.

The Greek Anthology (literally, “Gathering of Flowers”) is the name given to a collection of about 4500 short Greek poems (called epigrams but usually not epigrammatic) by about 300 composers. To the collection (called Stephanus, literally, “wreath” or “garland”) made and contributed to by Meleager of Gadara (1st century BC) was added another by Philippus of Thessalonica (late 1st century AD), a third by Diogenianus (2nd century), and much later a fourth, called the Circle, by Agathias of Myrina. These (lost) and others (also lost) were partly incorporated, arranged according to contents, by Constantinus Cephalas (early 10th century?) into fifteen books now preserved in a single manuscript of the Palatine Library at Heidelberg. The grand collection was rearranged and revised by the monk Maximus Planudes (14th century) who also added epigrams lost from Cephalas’ compilation.

The fifteen books of the Palatine Anthology are: I, Christian Epigrams; II, Descriptions of Statues; III, Inscriptions in a temple at Cyzicus; IV, Prefaces of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias; V, Amatory Epigrams; VI, Dedicatory; VII, Sepulchral; VIII, Epigrams of St. Gregory; IX, Declamatory; X, Hortatory and Admonitory; XI, Convivial and Satirical; XII, Strato’s “Musa Puerilis”; XIII, Metrical curiosities; XIV, Problems, Riddles, and Oracles; XV, Miscellanies. Book XVI is the Planudean Appendix: Epigrams on works of art.

Outstanding among the poets are Meleager, Antipater of Sidon, Crinagoras, Palladas, Agathias, Paulus Silentiarius.

Precious snippets of ancient song.

The five volumes in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Greek Lyric contain the surviving fragments of solo and choral song. This poetry was not preserved in medieval manuscripts, and few complete poems remain. Later writers quoted from the poets, but only so much as suited their needs; these quotations are supplemented by papyrus texts found in Egypt, most of them badly damaged. The high quality of what remains makes us realize the enormity of our loss.

Volume I presents Sappho and Alcaeus. Volume II contains the work of Anacreon, composer of solo song; the Anacreontea; and the earliest writers of choral poetry, notably the seventh-century Spartans Alcman and Terpander. Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and other sixth-century poets are in Volume III. Bacchylides and other fifth-century poets are in Volume IV along with Corinna (although some argue that she belongs to the third century). Volume V contains the new school of poets active from the mid-fifth to the mid-fourth century and also collects folk songs, drinking songs, hymns, and other anonymous pieces.

Elemental learning.

The splendid achievement of Greek mathematics is here illustrated in two volumes of selected mathematical works. Volume I (LCL 335) contains the divisions of mathematics; mathematics in Greek education; calculation; arithmetical notation and operations, including square root and cube root; Pythagorean arithmetic, including properties of numbers; the square root of 2; proportion and means; algebraic equations; Proclus; Thales; Pythagorean geometry; Democritus; Hippocrates of Chios; duplicating the cube and squaring the circle; trisecting angles; Theaetetus; Plato; Eudoxus of Cnidus (pyramid, cone); Aristotle (the infinite, the lever); Euclid.

Volume II (LCL 362) contains Aristarchus (distances of sun and moon); Archimedes (cylinder, sphere, cubic equations; conoids; spheroids; spiral; expression of large numbers; mechanics; hydrostatics); Eratosthenes (measurement of the earth); Apollonius (conic sections and other works); later development of geometry; trigonometry (including Ptolemy’s table of sines); mensuration: Heron of Alexandria (mensuration); Diophantus (algebra, determinate and indeterminate equations); Pappus (the revival of geometry).