Geography

More scholar and armchair voyager than actual adventurer (though he claimed he traveled widely--from the Black Sea to Ethiopia, Armenia to Etruria), Strabo, antiquity's great geographer, left us this extraordinary storehouse of travel lore. Books 3 to 7 report on Italy and northern Europe; 8 to 10 describe Greece and its mythology; 11 to 14 visit Armenia and Asia Minor; 15 and 16 tour India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Arabia; and 17 explores Egypt, Ethiopia, and North Africa.