List of Graeco-Roman geographers
Encyclopedia
pre-Hellenistic Classical Greece
Hellenistic period
Roman Empire period
Byzantine Empire
- Scylax of CaryandaScylax of CaryandaScylax of Caryanda was a renowned Carian explorer and writer of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE.-Exploration and literary works:In about 515 BCE, Scylax was sent by King Darius I of Persia to follow the course of the Indus River and discover where it led. Scylax and his companions set out from city...
(6th c. BC6th century BCThe 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC.Pāṇini, in India, composed a grammar for Sanskrit, in this century or slightly later...
) - AnaximanderAnaximanderAnaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia; Milet in modern Turkey. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales...
- Hecataeus of Miletus
- Massaliote PeriplusMassaliote PeriplusThe Massaliote Periplus or Massaliot Periplus is the name of a now-lost merchants' handbook possibly dating to as early as the 6th century BC describing the sea routes used by traders from Phoenicia and Tartessus in their journeys around Iron Age Europe...
(?)
Hellenistic period
- PytheasPytheasPytheas of Massalia or Massilia , was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia . He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about 325 BC. He travelled around and visited a considerable part of Great Britain...
(d. ca. 310 BC) - Periplus of Pseudo-ScylaxPeriplus of Pseudo-ScylaxThe Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax is an ancient Greek periplus that ranks among the minor Greek geographers, dating from 4th or 3rd century BC. The name of Scylax applied to the text is thought to be a pseudepigraphical appeal to authority: Herodotus mentions a Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek navigator...
(4th or 3rd c. BC) - MegasthenesMegasthenesMegasthenes was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica.He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain...
(d. ca. 290 BC) - Autolycus of PitaneAutolycus of PitaneAutolycus of Pitane was a Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. The lunar crater Autolycus was named in his honour.- Life and work :Autolycus was born in Pitane, a town of Aeolis within Western Anatolia...
(d. ca. 290 BC) - DicaearchusDicaearchusDicaearchus of Messana was a Greek philosopher, cartographer, geographer, mathematician and author. Dicaearchus was Aristotle's student in the Lyceum. Very little of his work remains extant. He wrote on the history and geography of Greece, of which his most important work was his Life of Greece...
(d. ca. 285 BC) - DeimakosDeimakosDeimachus , , was a Greek of the Seleucid Empire. He became an ambassador to the court of Bindusara "Amitragata" in Pataliputra in India....
(3rd c. BC) - EratosthenesEratosthenesEratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...
(ca. 276-194 BC) - ScymnusScymnusScymnus of Chios was a Greek geographer. He was said to have been the author of a periegesis in prose.An anonymous verse periegesis first published at Augsburg in 1600, originally ascribed to Marcianus of Heraclea, was long thought to be the lost work of Scymnus, but this was shown not to be the...
(fl.FloruitFloruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
180s BC) - HipparchusHipparchusHipparchus, the common Latinization of the Greek Hipparkhos, can mean:* Hipparchus, the ancient Greek astronomer** Hipparchic cycle, an astronomical cycle he created** Hipparchus , a lunar crater named in his honour...
(ca. 190-120 BC) - AgatharchidesAgatharchidesAgatharchides of Cnidus was a Greek historian and geographer .-Life:He is believed to have been born at Cnidus, hence his appellation. As Stanley M...
(2nd c. BC) - PosidoniusPosidoniusPosidonius "of Apameia" or "of Rhodes" , was a Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian and teacher native to Apamea, Syria. He was acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age...
(ca. 135-51 BC) - Pseudo-ScymnusPseudo-ScymnusPseudo-Scymnus is the name given by Augustus Meineke to the unknown author of a work on geography written in Classical Greek, The Circumnavigation of the Earth, an anonymous verse periegesis first published at Augsburg in 1600...
(ca. 90 BC) - Diodorus SiculusDiodorus SiculusDiodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
(ca. 90-30 BC) - Alexander PolyhistorAlexander PolyhistorLucius Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor was a Greek scholar who was enslaved by the Romans during the Mithridatic War and taken to Rome as a tutor. After his release, he continued to live in Italy as a Roman citizen...
(fl. 70s BC)
Roman Empire period
- Periplus of the Erythraean SeaPeriplus of the Erythraean SeaThe Periplus of the Erythraean Sea or Periplus of the Red Sea is a Greco-Roman periplus, written in Greek, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along Northeast Africa and India...
- StraboStraboStrabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
(64 BC - 24 AD) - Pomponius MelaPomponius MelaPomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera and died c. AD 45.His short work occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print. It is laconic in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing...
(fl. 40s AD) - Isidore of CharaxIsidore of CharaxIsidorus Characenus , commonly translated Isidore of Charax, was a geographer of the 1st century BC/1st century AD about whom nothing is known but his name and that he wrote at least one work....
(1st c. AD) - MucianusMucianusGaius Licinius Mucianus was a general, statesman and writer of ancient Rome.His name shows that he had passed by adoption from the gens Mucia to the gens Licinia. He was sent by Claudius to Armenia with Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. Under Nero he is recorded as suffect consul ca...
(1st c. AD) - Pliny the ElderPliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
(23-79 AD), Natural History - Marinus of TyreMarinus of TyreMarinus of Tyre, was a Greek geographer, cartographer and mathematician, who founded mathematical geography.-Biography and historical context:...
(ca. 70-130 AD) - PtolemyPtolemyClaudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
(90-168 AD), GeographyGeographia (Ptolemy)The Geography is Ptolemy's main work besides the Almagest... - PausaniasPausanias (geographer)Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
(2nd c.) - Agathedaemon of AlexandriaAgathedaemon of AlexandriaAgathedaemon of Alexandria, map designer, probably lived in the 2nd century AD. Some manuscripts of the Geography of Ptolemy contain twenty-seven maps, which are stated to have been drawn by Agathodaemon, who "delineated the whole world according to the eight books of Ptolemy's geography." As...
(2nd c.) - Dionysius of ByzantiumDionysius of ByzantiumDionysius of Byzantium was a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE....
(2nd c.) - AgathemerusAgathemerusAgathemerus was a Greek geographer who during the Roman Greece period published a small two-part geographical work titled A Sketch of Geography in Epitome , addressed to his pupil Philon. The son of Orthon, Agathemerus is speculated to have lived in the 3rd century...
(3rd c.) - Tabula PeutingerianaTabula PeutingerianaThe Tabula Peutingeriana is an itinerarium showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised in the fourth or early fifth century. It covers Europe, parts of Asia and North Africa...
(4th c.) - Alypius of AntiochAlypius of AntiochAlypius of Antioch was a geographer and a vicarius of Roman Britain, probably in the late 350s AD. He replaced Flavius Martinus after that vicarius' suicide...
(4th c.) - Marcian of HeracleaMarcian of HeracleaMarcian of Heraclea was a minor Greek geographer of Late Antiquity .His surviving works are:*Periplus maris externi, ed. Müller ,515-562....
(4th c.) - Julius HonoriusJulius HonoriusJulius Honorius, also known as Julius Orator, a teacher of geography during the Dark Ages .He is known only by a single work, Cosmographia, which is a set of notes he had written down by one of his students while he lectured about a world map , and by references to this work by later writers such...
(very uncertain: 4th, 5th or 6th century)
Byzantine Empire
- Hierocles (author of Synecdemus)Hierocles (author of Synecdemus)Hierocles or Hierokles was a Byzantine geographer of the sixth century and the attributed author of the Synecdemus or Synekdemos, which contains a table of administrative divisions of the Byzantine Empire and lists of the cities of each...
(6th c.) - Cosmas IndicopleustesCosmas IndicopleustesCosmas Indicopleustes was an Alexandrian merchant and later hermit, probably of Nestorian tendencies. He was a 6th-century traveller, who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian...
(6th c.) - Stephanus of ByzantiumStephanus of ByzantiumStephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...
(6th c.)
See also
- History of geographyHistory of geographyThe history of geography includes various histories of geography which have differed over time and between different cultural and political groups. In more recent developments, geography has become a distinct academic discipline. 'Geography' derives from the from Greek - geographia,, a literal...