Talk:Geographica

Possible copyright infringement
I took this out: Papyri
 * P. Köln 1. 8, in B. Krebber and R. Hübner, eds, Kölner Papyri 1 (1976) 27-32.
 * Krebber, B. Naustologoi bei Strabon: ein neues Papyrusfragment (P. Colon. inv. nr. 5861). Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 9 (1972) 204-221.
 * Krebber, B. Corrigenda. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 10 (1973) 188.
 * Merkelbach, R. Methone - Methana. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigaphik 10 (1973) 194-96.
 * P. Oxyrhynchus 3447, in A. Bülow-Jacobsen and J.E.G. Whitehorn, eds, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 49 (1982) 47-73, (numerous fragments containing text from Geography 9.1.14 - 9.5.22).
 * P. Oxyrhynchus 4459 in M.W. Haslam and others, eds, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 65 (1998) 71-75. (two fragments, containing text from Geography 2.5.20-24).

because it is copied just about word for word from Sarah Pothecary, given a cite web in external links. Moreover, Sarah has the goodness to offer some explanation of this gobbledegook which if offered without the explanation is totally inscrutable to any but the expert on Strabo papyri. We could after hours and hours of research, many links and an explanatory expansion of the section make it our own. However this article is not about the manuscripts of the Geography or at least I do not think it should be. Tell you what. Let whoever put this in here exert himself a bit more than a simple copy-paste and give us the section with cite book specifications and explanations so that the reader can know what all those abbreviations and numbers are and where the papryri are located and what they say more or less with some notes as to where the fragments are from and how valid they are likely to be and any other relevant notes on the papyri, making sure to cite his sources of information, and then we can evaluate whether it belongs in here or in a separate article on the papyri of Strabo. Until that time I for one just prefer to link to Sarah Pothecary so the reader can see the same thing with her explanations and not only that but just to copy with but slight modification from her website without attribution I believe might be a copyright infringement.Dave 01:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sell-out
Sarah's web site has been shut down permanently starting the last of last month. If you go looking her up you find the book she wrote with Daniella and someone else, probably containing this material. The book isn't cheap. You scholars will have no problem buying it but the rest of us are sort of out of luck. I don't know WHAT to do about the material above. I suppose someone ought to research the topics and do a thumbnail sketch independently. Any takers?Dave (talk) 03:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * http://www.strabo.ca/papyri.html I'm not sure what the problem is with the papyri list above. It seems to be pretty standard bibliographical material and quite useful information. --Quadalpha (talk) 20:30, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies About India
Book 15 of the Geographica gives a description of the people in the Indian subcontinent. However, there are several inaccuracies in this book.

The following quote (from 15.1.59) describes the lifestyle of Brahmins in ancient times:

"the philosophers tarry in a grove in front of the city in an enclosure merely commensurate with their needs, leading a frugal life, lying on straw mattresses and skins, abstaining from animal food and the delights of love, and hearkening only to earnest words, and communicating also with anyone who wishes to hear them; and that the hearer is forbidden either to talk or to cough or even to spit; and if he does, he is banished from association with them for that day as a man who has no control over himself; and that, after having lived in this way for thirty-seven years, they retire, each man to his own possessions, where they live more freely and under less restraint"

Anyone who is familiar with Hinduism can tell you that Hindu law divides life into four stages:

1) Brahmacharya (age 5-25)-- studying Hindu scriptures under a guru 2) Grihasthashram (age 25-50)-- life as a householder 3) Vanaprasthashram (age 50-75)-- withdrawal from society 4) Sannyasam (age 75+)--retirement

As you can see, Strabo was describing the first two stages (Brahmacharya and Grihasthashram) in his account.

However, he gets the length of the stages wrong. Instead of lasting 25 years, he describes Brahmacharya as lasting for 37 years. For a while, I wondered why Strabo made such a mistake.

Then, I came across this interesting tidbit about Aristotle's beliefs:

"The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men. (VII.1335a27)"

In other words, Strabo got the "37 years" figure not from Hindu law, but from Aristotle. His account of Indian society was inaccurate, since he was viewing it through a Greek lens. Hokie Tech (talk) 23:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Only three of the four sides are listed
This article says this: The inhabited world is an island shaped like a truncated cone, in a spherical quadrilateral formed between the equator, the arctic circle and a great circle passing through the poles. So we have (1) the equator, (2) the arctic circle, and (3) a great circle passing through the poles. That's only three, not four, as in a quadrilateral. Probably it should have said two great circles passing through the poles. Every meridian of longitude is a great circle passing through the poles. Michael Hardy (talk) 15:06, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Broken link
The worldcat link in the Authority Control section sends you to a 404 page, and I don't know how to fix it. Could someone else do it? Hextor26 (talk) 15:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC)