SOURCE: “Did Strabo Visit Athens?,” American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 67, No. 3, July, 1963, pp. 296-300.

In the following essay, Waddy notes Strabo’s decidedly modest use of his own eyewitness accounts in the Geography and, rejecting arguments made by other scholars, contends that it is virtually certain that Strabo visited Athens.

This is a question which has often been discussed; but no clear answer has been reached. C. H. Weller, in an article entitled “The extent of Strabo’s travels in Greece,” summed up the opinions of scholars who had gone before him. There is no need to quote these again at length; but it can briefly be said that at one extreme came the early opinion of Leake: “As his account of the sea-coast is generally more accurate and detailed than that of the inland districts, we are tempted to believe that few parts of the interior were...