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Geographica (Strabo)
The Geographika is an extensive work by Strabo, spanning 17 volumes, and can be regarded as an encyclopedia of the geographical knowledge of his time; except for parts of Book 7, it has come down to us complete. Yet while it does cover the entire world known to the Greeks and Romans of his time, it suffers from several major flaws: a constant and very intrusive defense of the poet Homer as a geographical source, leading the author to dismiss more recent writers, such as Herodotus, who were often eyewitnesses to what they reported; a preoccupation with minute, often captiously argumentative, criticism of these other writers; a peculiarly Greek aprioristic attitude to facts, seeking to derive them from the pure exercise of reason: in sum, one would prefer more geography and less argumentation.
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