The opening of Preface
Strabo, the author of this work, was born at Amasia, or Amasijas, a town situated in the gorge of the mountains through which passes the river Iris, now the Ieschil Irmak, in Pontus, which he has described in the 12th book.[1] He lived during the reign of Augustus, and the earlier part of the reign of Tiberius; for in the 13th book[2] he relates how Sardes and other cities, which had suffered severely from earthquakes, had been repaired by the provident care of Tiberius the present Emperor; but the exact date of his birth, as also of his death, are subjects of conjecture only. Coraÿ and Groskurd conclude, though by a somewhat different argument, that he was born in the year B. C. 66, and the latter that he died A. D. 24. The date of his birth as argued by Groskurd, proceeds on the assumption that Strabo was in his thirty-eighth year when he went from Gyaros to Corinth, at which latter place Octavianus Cæsar was then staying on his return to Rome after the battle of Actium, B. C. 31. We may, perhaps, be satisfied with following Clinton, and place it not later than B. C. 54.