Book front
preface.9
The three following books are dedicated to the description of Greece, with the adjacent islands. The 8th comprises the Peloponnesus and its well-known seven provinces, Elis, Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, Corinthia with Sicyonia, Achaia, and Arcadia: the 9th, Attica, with Megaris, Boeotia, Phocis, both Locri and Thessaly: the 10th, Euboea, Aetolia, and Acarnania, with the islands. After a long digression on the subject of the Curetes, the description of Europe closes with some account of Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea. The design and construction of these three books differ considerably from the preceding. Homer is adopted as the foundation of his geographical descriptions; some things Strabo must have learnt as an eye-witness, but more from vivâ voce communications at Athens or at Corinth. All is interwoven together without any clear line of separation, and the result is some confusion. Athens, Corinth, Argos, and their neighbourhood, were the only parts of Greece our author saw. Heeren, indeed, maintains that he had seen the whole of it, and the Archipelago, but satisfactory proof of this is altogether wanting.
