ABSTRACT
Strabo's Geography, admittedly a lengthy work, comes across to the modern reader as something of a wall of words. This chapter identifies some of those toe-holds and finger-holds by looking at the ways in which Strabo imposes form and structure on his monumental work. Strabo breaks his narrative into sections that both reflect and define the parts of the physical world described within them. Strabo's work was originally written out on a set of papyrus rolls, so the page was a meaningless unit as far as Strabo and his early readers were concerned. Assyria covers a large part of what people would today call "the Middle East". Such is its geographical extension. Strabo's definition of Babylonia stands at the head of his description of Babylonia itself. Areas adjacent to Babylonia to the east and west, in contrast, fall under the Assyrian rubric and are accordingly included in Strabo's ensuing account of Babylonia's surroundings.
