SARDO
357
SARGON
good cause, such is its toughness, facility of working, beauty of color, and the high polish of which it is sus- ceptible, and which Pliny states that it retains longer than any other gem." Sards differ in color. There is a bright-red variety which, in Pliny's time, was the most esteemed; and perhaps the Hebrew (idem, from a root which means " to be red," points to this kind. There is also a paler or honey-colored variety; but in sards there is always a shade of yellow mingling with the red (see King, Ant. Gems, p. 6). The sardius is the stone now called the carneliun, from its color (« came), which resembles that of raw flesh. The Hebrew name is de- rived from a root (CTX) which signifies redness. The sardius or carnelian is of the flint family, and is a kind of chalcedony. The more vivid the red in this stone, the higher is the estimation in which it is held. It was anciently, as now, more frequently engraved on than any other stone. The ancients called it sardius, because Sardis in Lydia was the place where they first became acquainted with it; but the sardius of Babylon was considered of greater value (Pliny, Hist. Naf. xxx vii, 7). The Hebrews probably obtained the carnelian from Arabia. In Yemen there is found a very fine dark-red carnelian, which is called el-Akik {^\i:hn\\T, Beschreib. p. 142). The Arabs wear it on the finger, on the arm above the elbow, and in the belt before the abdomen. It is supposed to stop hemorrhage when laid on a fresh wound. — Kitto; Smith. See Theophr. />« Lr/ynV. c. 43 ; Cleaveland, Mineral, p. 250; Moore, A nc. Mineral, p. 153.
Sardo, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Stheneliis, whose name was given to the city of Sardis.
Sar'donyx (aapdnwS,, from aapliov, the sardius, and oi't't, the onyx) is mentioned in the New Test, once only — viz. in Rev. xxi, 20 — as the stone which garnish- ed the fifth foundation of the wall of the heavenly Jeru- salem. '• By sardonyx," says Pliny ( N. H. xxxvii, 6 ), who describes several varieties, " was formerly under- stood, as its name implies, a sard with a wdiite ground beneath it, like the flesh under the finger-nail." The sardonyx consists of "a white opaque layer, superim- posed upon a red transparent stratum of the true red sard" (King, Ant. Gems, p. 9). It is, like the sard, merely a variety of agate, and is frequently employed by en- gravers for the purposes of a signet-ring.— Smith. It is a species of onyx, distinguished from the common stone of that name by having its different colors, red and white, disposed in alternate bands. But there is an- other stone so called, whose tint is reddish yellow or orange, with sometimes a tinge of brown {Jslooxe, Anc. Mineral, p. 153).
Sardus, in Greek mytholog)', was the son of Ma- ceris, who was known as Hercules among the Libyans and Egyptians. He led a colony of Libyans to the island of Ichnusa, who settled there without driving away the original inhabitants. The Libyans subse- quently sent a statue of Sardus as a votive offering to Delphos, and gave his name to the island, which there- after was known as Sardinia.
Sa'rea (Vulg. id., for the Greek text is not extant), one of the five scribes "ready to write swiftly" whom Esdras was commanded to take (2 Esdr. xiv, 24).
Sarep'ta {'Eapcwrd; Xulg.Sarepta; Syriac, Tsar- path), the Greek form of the name which in the He- brew text of the Old Test, appears as Zarephath (q. v.). The place is designated l)y the same formula on its single occurrence in the New Test. (Luke iv, 2(5) that it is when first mentioned in the Sept, version of 1 Kings xvii, 9, " Sarepta of Sidonia."
Sareseok, in Persian mythology, is a bullock formed bj' Ormuzd o>it of the generative powers of the primitive ox which was slain by Ahriman. Sareseok supplied the world with animals, and became one of the greatest benefactors' of mankind.
Sar'gon (Heb. Saryon', "|'5'i&, either ;jn?i<;e of the
sun [Gesenius] cix firm king [Rawlinson]; Sept. 'Apva V. r. Na/jj/a), a king of Assyria, whose general. Tartan, in the time of Hezekiah, besieged Ashdod, the key of Egvpt, with the view of then invading that country (Isa.xx, l,4sq.). B.C.715.
Sargon was one of the greatest of the Assyrian kings. His name is read in the native cuneiform inscriptions (q. V.) as Sarffimi (see Layard, Kin. and Bah. p. 148), while a town which he built and called after himself (now Khorsabad) was known as Sarghiin to the Arabi- an geographers. He is mentioned by name oidy once in Scripture (as iibove), and then not in a historical book, which formerly led historians and critics to sus- pect that he Avas not really a king distinct from those mentioned in Kings and Chronicles, but rather one of those kings under another name. Yitringa, Oft'erhaus {Spicileg. p. 125 sq.), Eichhom, and Hupfeld {De Rehvs Assyrior.\),b\) identified him with Shalmaneser; Gro- tius, Lowth, and Keil (comp. also Schroer, Imper. Babyl. p. 152) with Sennacherib; Perizonius, Kalinsky, and Michaelis with Esar-haddon. All these conjectures are now shown to be wrong by the Assyrian inscriptions, which prove Sargon to have been distinct and different from the several monarchs named, and fix his place in the list — where it had been already assigned by Paulus, Eosenmhller, Gesenius, Knobel, Ewald, and Winer — be- tween Shalmaneser and Sennacherib. He was certain- ly Sennacherib's father, and there is no reason to doubt that he was his immediate predecessor (see Jour, of Sac. Lit. July, 1854, p. 398 sq.). He ascended the throne of Assj'ria, as we gather from his annals, in the same year that Merodach-Baladan ascended the throne of Babylon, which, according to Ptolemy's canon, was B.C. 721. This is Col. Kawlinson's date (Lond. Aihe- nceum, Aug. 22, 1863, p. 245). But the synchronism with the Hebrew annals [see Hezekiah; Samaria] would locate Sargon's accession in B.C. 720. G. Smith puts it in B.C. 722 (Hist, of Assyria, ch. ix), and so Prof. Rawlinson {A ncient Monarchies, ii, 141). He seems to have been a usurper, and not of royal birth, for in his inscriptions he carfully avoids all mention of his father. It has been conjectured that he took advantage of Shalmaneser's absence at the protracted siege of Sama- ria (2 Kings xvii, 5) to effect a revolution at the seat of government, by which that king was deposed and he himself substituted in his room. See Shalmaneser. It is remarkable that Sargon claims the conquest of Samaria, which the narrative in Kings appears to as- sign to his predecessor. He places the event in his first year, before any of his other expeditions. Perhaps, therefore, he is the "king of Assyria" intended in 2 Kings xvii, 6 and xviii, 11, who is not said to be Shal- maneser, though we might naturally suppose so from no other name being mentioned. Or perhaps he claim- ed the conquest as his own, though Shalmaneser really accomplished it, because the capture of the city occurred after he had been acknowleilged king in the Assyrian capital. At any rate, to him belongs the settlement of the Samaritans (27,280 families, according to his own statement) in Halah and on the Habor (Khabur), the river of Gozan, and (at a later period, probably) in the cities of the Medes.