Synicuse was one of the most famous and magnificent colonic-a of Greece. It« defeat of the j^reat Athenian expedi- tion in B.C. 415 waa one of the most critical events in Greek history ; and it« kings were among the leading powers in tlie Greek world. Whether it preserved it« old prosperit.v in the first centiiPr- after Christ is uncertain, as Sicily suffered severely in the Civil Ware, especially from the exactions of Sexlus Pompey and in the contest between him and Augustus. Strabo,' 272 f., describes the whole island as in a Btat« of decay in his time, some of the cities having disappeared, while others were declining : the interior was to a large extent given op to grazing and horse-breeding, peopled by nerdsmen, and devoid of educative influences. Its ancierit importance as an arable and corn-growing countrj* had disappeared ; and the reason for this lay p»rtly in the economic conditions of the empire, and parttv in the dreadful circumstances of the Senile Wars, B.C. 136-132 and 10:)-1()U. The land belonged for tlie most part to atisentee landlords.
Syracuse was one of the 26 censori(e eivUates of Sicily, which hiMl been conquered in war, and whose territory had been appropriated by the Roman State as afjer ^liiUciui. Julius Cajsar, as was natural to his statesmanlike mind, had been revolting schemes for the restoration of prosperity to Sicily, but his plans were interrupted by his ass-assination. Antony pro<lucea a plan which he declared to have been found among Caisar's papers, and proiioscd a law to extend the Roman fruricliisu to Sicily. This was not carried out com- pletely ; and Augustus was content with a much more gradual process of elevating Sicily to the full Roman rights. He rounded seven Roman colonies of militar>- origin, one of which was Syracuse." Pliny mentions also that there were in Sicily two Roman towns {oppida civiujn Jioinanorum) and three cities with Latin rights ; but his enumeration is verj- imperfect, imd It is certain that Roman and Latin rights were much more widelyspread in Sicily before the middle of the first century after Christ than ho allows. It was during this process of transition from the fiosition of a conquered province to that of a con- stituent part of the Roman State that St. Paul approached the Sicilian coast.
Syracuse is mentioned in the NT only as having been a harbour where St. Paul lav at anchor for three days on his voyage from ^lalta to Rome. The shipwrecked crew and passengers, after spend- ing three months in Malta, set .sail on the Dio- scuri, evidently one of the Alexandrian fleet of imperial transports carrying grain from Egypt to maintain the food siipplj' in Koine.t They started, evidently, very early in the year, probably in February, before the settled weather and the customary season for navigation (vi'ire clnnsum 11 Nov. to 5 March) had begun. That implies that a .luitable and seemingly steady wind was blowing, which tempted them to embark, and carried them straight to Syracuse, a distance of about 100 miles. On the voyage from Malta to Rome OS a whole, see RllKOiu.M.
Nothing is said with regard to any preaching by St. Paul in Syracuse, nor could any be cvpccted to occur. The shi]) was certainly waiting for a suit- able wind to carry it north to the straits of Messina ; and under such circumstances no prisoner was likely to bo allowed leave of absence, as the ship must be ready to take instant advantage of
• Pliny (iVof. Uitt. 111. 8»-90) wrongly mentions only five (one being Syracuse).
t By a strange mistake, In contradiction of Ac 2811, the Diufcuri Is described in Smith's Dli iii. Uia as a ship in Iho African oom trade, which had salle<l from the province Afrii-a Inteniling to round I'achynum to Syracuse, and was carried out of iia course to Malta. On the iianie of the ship, and the
CmmaUcol constnictlon ol the clause describing It, sm KOIOM.
the wind. A survey of the progress of early Christianity would show that it rarely spread through the activity of coasting travellers, even on shores where their voyages were verj- tedious and subject to frequent and long interruptions (as, for example, the coasts of LvciAanil I'AMl'IIVLIA). It is mure probable that the new religion spread from Italy to Sicily in the course of direct com- munication between the two countries. Many Christian memorials of a fairly but not very early date have b 'en found at S3'racuse : see the papers by Orsi in Notizie degli Scavi, 1893 and 1894, and esp. in liomische Quartalschrift f. christl. Alt. 1896, pp. 1-59. W. M. Kamsay.
SYRIA, SYRIANS.— See Aram, ARASLffiiANS.
SYRIAC LANGUAGE.— See Lakguaqk OF OT,
vol. iii. p. 25*.
SYRIAC VERSIONS.- No branch of the Early Church has done more for the translation of the Bible into their vernacular than the Syriac-speak- iiig. In our European libraries we have Syriac Bible MSS from the Lebanon, Egypt, Sinai, Meso
Sotnmia, Armenia, India (Malabar), even from hina. And many of the Bible versions in other Oriental languages are dependent on, or at least inthienced by, the Syriac, as the Armenian, Arabic, Ethiopic. Some of the Syriac MSS ap- pear to be the oldest Bible MSS, in any language, which have an e.\act date : a Syriac Pentateuch in the British Museum (Add. 1442.')) is dated from the year 464, written by a deacon .John at Amid.* A Syriac • Chinese stone inscription, erected at Singan-fu in the year 781, discovered hy .Jesuit missionaries in 1625, speaks of the 27 books of the NT. It would be a pleasant task to follow up the history of the Syri.ac Bible ver-sions through all times, regions, and departments of culture : want of space, however, obliges us to confine ourselves to the importance of tlie Syr. V.S.S for the modem student of the Bible. We be-jin with the NT.