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Log In
Led by Strabo Simulacrum
Led by Strabo Simulacrum
The question
Before history, before philosophy, before oratory, the Greek world is a *place*. A scattered archipelago of cities — most of them on coasts or within sight of the sea — separated by mountains, joined by ships, distributed around an inland sea (the Mediterranean) and an outland sea (the Black). Geography determined what kind of polities could form, what kind of warfare was possible, what kind of trade, what kind of intellectual life. Strabo Simulacrum — the great geographer of the late first century BCE, whose seventeen-book *Geographika* surveys the entire known world from the perspective of an educated Greek — opens this strand by giving us the map.
Outcome
The student can locate every major Greek city and region on a map of the ancient Mediterranean; explain why the Greek world's geography produced *polis*-based politics; identify the major trade routes and what moved along them; and frame the rest of the strand within the geographical and chronological coordinates Strabo Simulacrum establishes.
Practice scenarios
Strabo Simulacrum gives you a copy of any modern atlas of the ancient world (the *Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World* if you can access it; any reputable modern reference otherwise) and a list of fifteen ancient places — five from mainland Greece, five from the Aegean and Ionia, five from the wider Greek world (Magna Graecia, the Black Sea, North Africa, Egypt). Locate each. Then write a 600-word geographical essay: choose any *one* major event from Greek history (the Persian invasion of 480 BCE, the Sicilian Expedition of 415 BCE, Alexander's eastern campaign, the foundation of Marseilles, the Hellenistic kingdoms after 323 BCE) and explain how the geography of the Greek world made that event possible (or impossible) and shaped what happened. Quote Strabo's *Geographika* (any modern translation, e.g. Loeb) at least once.
Your goals