Strabo was known in the Middle Ages as "the Geographer," just as William Shakespeare is now commonly referred to as "the Bard." That he should be so honored by the scribes of medieval times reveals both the strengths and the shortcomings of his one surviving work, the seventeen books of the Geography. Strabo's passion for encyclopedism------his desire to represent the entire earth, in all its facets, within the ambit of his text----endeared him to the medieval mind, whereas in the twentieth century he has been largely overlooked for the same reason. Strabo's Geography is the sort of work that is more often sampled or excerpted than read in its entirety; yet it was written to be a kolossourgia, or "monumental composition," distinguished by its scope and completeness rather than by the artistry or elaboration of its parts. The grandeur of his conception was unrivaled in antiquity, and in...