SOURCE: “Strabo on Antioch: Notes on His Method,”Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. LXXII, 1941, pp. 85-95.

In the following essay, Downey examines some problems and difficulties with Strabo’s account of Antioch and argues that it should be read as a stylized literary passage.

I

Strabo’s account of the foundation and growth of Antioch has given trouble to modern scholars for a variety of reasons. An important part of his account disagrees with a statement of Malalas, whose information should carry weight. Strabo does not mention the island, which formed a part of the city, and that part of his account which might be taken to apply to it disagrees with what Libanius says about the island. Again, scholars have sometimes been led, by a natural eagerness to obtain as much information as possible from the passage, to attempt to utilize it for...