Fra ‘suono latino' e ‘lingua dei Romani': calchi e traduzioni in Strabone di Amaseia

The Geography of the Eastern-Greek Strabo – come from an eminent family of Amaseia in Pontus – is a prominent source on the Augustan age not only from the point of view of strictly geographical knowledge, but also for what concerns the historical and political-institutional data. Writing in Greek for a high-ranking public, the geographer has often had to resort to translationes, or ‘literal translations’, and to transcriptiones, or ‘graphic transliterations’ in Greek of Latin words used to describe places, peoples, cults, political institutions and economic aspects related to the Western part of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, the choice, made by the writer, of specific Greek terms to make understandable the geo-ethnographic data and the political-institutional aspects, can offer useful indications not only on his way of interpreting the ‘reality’ of the Empire and on the difficulties encountered in the express of these concepts, but also on the ideal addressee and on the real audience of the Geography.

Keywords: Strabo, transcriptio, translatio, place names