Rho, Giovanni, an Italian Jesuit, was born at Jlilan in 1590. In 1G06 he was admitted to the Society of Jesus, taught rhetoric at Brera, and, after a time, de- sired to go as a missionary to India. But his superiors refused to grant his request, and he continued during his whole life to teach in the different cities of Italy. Kho was, near the close of his life, made superior of a convent at Milan, and tinally died at Rome, Nov. 9, 1G62. He left several works, among them, Mnrfyi-ium Triam Beutorum e Soc. Jesu, Pauli Michi, J oh. Goto, et Jac. Ghisai (Florence, 1G28): — Inierroyationts Apolo- yeticcB (Lyons, IG-ll) : — and orations on various ecclesi- astical subjects. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generule, s. v.
Rho'da CPoCi], Rose), the name of a servant-maid who announced Peter's arrival at the door of Mar3''s house after his miracidous release from prison (Acts xii, lo). A.D.44. See Poutp:k.
Rhodes (PoSoc, rosy), an island in the Mediterra- nean, near the coast of Asia Minor, celebrated from the remotest antiquity as the seat of commerce, navigation, literature, and the arts, but now reduced to a state of abject poverty by the devastations of war and the tyr- anny and rapacity of its Turkish rulers.
I. Scriptural Notices. — The Sept. translators place the Ehodians among the children of Javan (Gen. x,4), and in this they are followed by Eusebius, Jerome, and Isidore ; but Bochart maintains that the Khodians are too modern to have been planted there by any immedi- ate son of Javan, and considers that Moses rather in- tended the Gauls on the Mediterranean towards the mouth of the Rhone, near Marseilles, where there was a district called Rhodanusia, and a city of the same name. They also render Ezek. xxvii, 15, "children of tlie Hhodians," instead of, as in the Hebrew, " children of Dedan." Calmet considers it prol)able that here they read " children of Redan, or Rodan," but that in Gen. x, 4 they read " Dedan," as in the Hebrew. In the time of the consolidation of the Roman power in the Levant we have a notice of Jewish residents in Rhodes (1 Mace. XV, 23). Paul touched there on his return voyage to Syria from the third missionary journey (Acts xxi, I). It does not appear that he landed from the ship. The daj' before he' had been at Cos, an island to the north- west ; and from Rhodes he proceeded eastwards to Pat- ara, in Lycia. It seems, from all the circumstances of the narrative, that the wind was blowing from the north-west, as it very often does in that part of the Levant. Two incidents in the life of Herod the Great ciinnected with Rhodes are well worthy of mention here. When he went to Italy, about the close of the last re- publican struggle, he found that the city had suffered much from Cassius, and gave liberal sums to restore it
(Josejihus, Ant. xiv, 14, 3). Here, also, after the battle of Actiuni, he met Augustus and secured his favor (ibid. xv,G,G).
II. Histori/. — Rhodes was an ancient Dorian selilc- ment made, probably, soon after the conquest of Pelo- ponnesus; but in process of time the different races be- came fused together and were distinguished for com- mercial enterprise. They built the superb city of Rhodes at the northern extremity of the island, and thus took advantage of the magnificent harbor which the earlier settlers had overlooked. After this it prospered greatly and passed through various fortunes in a polit- ical respect, becoming i'or a time connected with the Carian dynasty, then with the Persian emyiire, and at a later period it became famous for a memorable siege it sustained against the arms of Demetrius Poliorcctes, from whom it obtained honorable terms of peace. The citizens now set themselves to clear the ^gean Sea of pirates, an enterprise in which they completely succeed- ed ; and it was to their exertions that merchants owed the safety of their ships and the possibility of extend- ing their commerce. The mercantile tastes and honor- able character of this people procured them the good- will of all the civilized world. They possessed in per- fection those virtues in which the rest of the Greeks were so lamentaljly deficient. They were upright, con- scientious, and prudent. While they cultivated trade they did not neglect science, literature, and art; and, though the time of their prosperity was subsequent to the decline of the intellectual supremacy of Greece, the Rhodian ajra was a long and a happy one. The people formed an alliance with Rome, and maintained through- out the Roman period their independence; and, while they faithfully kept every article of their treaties, they avoided anything like servility. In the time of Anto- ninus Pius Rhodes was not only free itself, but exteiui- ed the advantages of its free constitution to many of the surrounding islands and a considerable district in Caria on the opposite coast. Nor was Rhodes by any means despicable in literary reputation. Cleobulus, reckoned among the seven sages, was a Rhodian ; Cal- limachus and Apollonius were eminent as poets; and eloquence was understood and cherished in Rhodes when it was all but extinct in every other part of Greece. Cicero went to study here, and the young Ro- man nobles maile Rhodes their university as they had formerly done with Athens.