Library › Greek: Geography & Travel › Survey of Syria (Fragments)
The Survey of Syria (Syrias Schoinometresis, 'measurement of Syria in schoinoi') was a geographical work by an unknown author, probably of the Hellenistic period. It is lost, and only one fragment survives, quoted by Eusebius in his Preparation for the Gospel, most likely by way of Alexander Polyhistor. The passage describes Jerusalem as lying on high, rugged ground, with walls partly of dressed stone and mostly of rubble, a circuit of twenty-seven stades, and an abundant spring.
Little as it is, the fragment belongs to a small group of early Greek descriptions of Jerusalem and is regularly cited in discussions of the city's size and fortifications. It also shows the Greek interest in measured itineraries of the Near East that followed Alexander's conquests.
About this edition. The Greek text comes from the Eulogikon open corpus of public-domain editions (standard reference: FGrHist 849 F 1). Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ).