The Sicyonian territory is described as one of singu- lar fertility, which was probabh' increased by artificial irrigation. In the changeful times which preceded the final absorption of European Hellas by the Romans it was subject to plunder by any party who had the com- mand of the sea; and in B.C. 208 the Roman general Sulpicius, who had a squadron at Naupactus, landed be- tween Sicyon and Corinth (probably at the mouth of the little river Nemea, which was the boimdary of the two states), and was proceeding to harass the neighbor- hood, when Philip, king of Macedonia, who was then at Corinth, attacked him and drove him back to his ships. But very soon after this Roman influence began to pre- vail in the cities of the Achajan league, which were in- stigated by dread of Nabis, the dynast of Lacedjemon, to seek Roman protection. One congress of the league was held at Sicyon under the presidency of the Romans in B.C. 198, and another at the same place six years later. From this time Sic3'on alwaj'S appears to have adhered to the Roman side, and on the destruction of Corinth by Mummius (B.C. 146) was rewarded by the victors not only with a large portion of the Corinthian domain, but with the management of the Isthmian games. This distinction was again lost when Jidius Ciesar refounded Corinth and made it a Roman colony; but in the meanwhile Sicyon enjoyed for a century all the advantages of an entrepot which had before accrued to Corinth from her position between the two seas. Even in the days of the Antonines the pleasure-grounds {rifiti'Oif) of the Sicyonian tyrant Cleon continued ap- propriated to the Roman governors of Achaia ; and at the time to which reference is made in the Maccabees it was probably the most important position of all over which the Romans exercised infiuence in (ireece (Dio- dorus Sicidus, XV, 70; xx, 37, 102; Polybius, ii, 43; Strabo, viii, 7, 25; Livv, xxxii, 15, 19; xxxv, 25; Pausan. ii, 8; v, 14, 9'; vi, 19, 1-6, x, 11, 1). — Smith. See Clark, Peloponnesus, p. 338 sq. ; Smith, Diet, of Class. Geog. s. v.
Sicyonia, in Grecian mythologv, was, 1, an appel- lative of Venus, derived from her temple at Sicyon, where she was represented in a statue of gold aud
SIDA
130
SIDE
ivorv — apparently the famous Venus Victrix, since, ac- coriliug to I'ausaiiias, it held in its hand an api)le ; "2, a surname of Minerva, to wliom Epopeus erected a tem- ple after his victory over the Thebans.
Sida, in Grecian mythology, was the wife of Orion, who was l)anished by Juno to Hades because she |)re- teuded to be more beautiful than the goddess (Apollod. i, 4, 3).
Sid'dim, Yai.e of (Ileb. E'mek fid-i-Suklim', C^TiJjn p'OV ; Sept. i) (pdpay^ t) aXvic!], and »/ koiXuq t) dXvKti; ^'ulg. I'allis ,Si/vesiris), a place mentioned in (itn. xiv, 3, M, 10 as the scene of the encounter between Chedorlaomer and the five confederate kings of the plain of the Dead Sea. (In the following account we chiefly follow that of Dr. Porter in Kitto's CycUqxedia.')
1. The Xaine, — The word Suhliin appears to be from the root "IT'J, smldd, " to be straight or level." The singular TCJ or il'^'Z! would thus signify "a level Add;" and the phrase Jiiiiek Siddim (C'H'J), "the valley of fields." Prof. Staiilej- conjectures {Sin. and Pal.) that Siddim is connected with iTlT, sade/i. " a field," and that the signification of the name was thus direct- ly the "valley of the fields," so called from the high state of cultivation in which it was maintained before the destruction of Sodom and the other cities. Gese- iiius expresses his conviction (by inference from the Arabic sad, " an obstacle") that the real meaning of the ■words Emek has-Siddim is '"a plain cut up bj' stony channels which render it difficult of transit;" and with this agree Fiirst {Handicb. ii, 411 b) and Kalisch (Gen- esis, p. 355). Perhaps more accurately the word may in this sense be derived from IT'iJ, saddd, "'to harrow." See Kalisch, loc cif., who, however, disapproves of such a derivation, and adheres to that of Gesenius.
The following are the equivalents of the name given in the ancient versions: Samar. Vers., iT^pbn "iC'^'S; Onkelos, X'bpn ~'d^''2; H&ad\as, merj tl-hah'd ; Peshi- to, umeka di-sedume ; Aquila, koiKuq tuji' Tripnrt^ij'wj'; Symm. and Theod., KoiXdg rwv dXaiov ( = n"iCX) ; Jo- sephus, ipptara dcpaXrov; Jerome (Qiicest, in Gen.), V(illL<< Salinm'um. The authors of the Sept. probably thoiiglit that the clause " which is the Salt Sea" was explanatory of the word Siddim, which they therefore rendered i) dXvtdi. Or perhaps they may have read C^ win instead of C^Tijri ; and d^vKt) may be an error for dXuiKnc = dXaioSfiQ, " wooded ;" a view corroborated by the Vulgate, which has silrestris ; and by the read- ing of S\-mmachiis and Theodotion, rwv dX(T(oi'.
2. Topot/raphicul Jndicntions. — The word rendered "vale" is in Hebrew ^'OV. emek, which means a low or sunken tract of land. See Vai.i.hv, It was probably a section of the Arabah somewhat lower than the rest; perhaps resembling the plain of Sai)kah at the southern end of the Dead Sea. It was "full of l)itumen-pits;" or, as the IIel)rew idiom expresses it, it was "wells, wells of bitumen" (l^H niK3 n^Xa), They are so numerous as to stud its whole surface ((Jen. xiv, 10). It was the battle-field on which (he king of Sodom and liis allies were vancpiished. It seems pn>l)abl(', iliowgh it is not stated, that Sodom andlJomorrah were situated in the vale. He this as it may, the vale was included in the general destruction when "tlie Lord rained upon Sodom and upon (Jomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord in heaven" (.\ix, 24).