Strabo's Geographika 1.1. A translation and study

• Grant number: 23/03589-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Languages
• Principal Investigator: Daniel Rossi Nunes Lopes
• Grantee: Enzo Perucelo Feliciano
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The attempt to describe anthropogenic changes over the large portion of the inhabited earth, the oecumene, outlined the main contours of what it was like to do Geography in the ancient Hellenic world. This tradition raised greater pretensions when, from the Hellenistic period onwards, it came to represent a science delineated from polymathy and became the receptacle of the most important scientific contributions of its time. If Strabo represents the apex of this knowledge in the 1st century CE, his work, the Geographiká, in turn, stands as the compendium responsible for preserving much of that geographical thought that is now lost. The first two books of this work, the prolegomena (1-2), contain, above all, critical analyzes regarding the theoretical contributions in the field of Geography, as well as embracing the purpose of this work to properly instruct those who hold power. Given the theme, these two portions of the book, in particular, became the target of great interest from the Renaissance onwards, since they contributed to the conceptualization of the term homo universalis. Therefore, the present project aims at a translation with an introductory study of the first chapter (1.1) of this work, which not only contains the defense and conceptualization of a discipline that is central to the Social science, but also provides the implications for its usefulness and purpose by outlining the ideal leader able to orchestrate the germ of what would be a geopolitics.