The invention of the words " Syro-Phoenicia" and " Syro-Phoenicians" seems to have been the work of the Romans, though it is difficult to say exactly what they intended by the expressions. It has generally been supposed that the}' wished to distinguish the Phoe- nicians of Sj'ria from those of Africa (the Carthagini- ans); and the term " Syrophocnix" has been regarded as the exact converse to "Libyphocnix" (Alford, ad foe). But the Libj'phoenices are not the Phoenicians of Afri- ca generally — they are a peculiar race, half-African and half- Phoenician ("mixtum Punicum Afris genus," Livj', xxi, 22). The Syro-Phoenicians, therefore, should, on this analogy, be a mixed race, half Phoenicians and half Sj'rians. This is probal)ly the sense of the word in the satirists Lucilius (ap. Non. Marc. IJe Pi-ojmetat, Sei'm, iv, 431) and Juvenal {Sat. viii, 159), who would regard a mongrel Oriental as peculiarly contemptible. In later times a geographic sense of the terms superseded the ethnic one. The emperor Hadrian divided Sj-ria into three parts — Syria Proper, Syro-Phoenice, and Syro- Patestina; and henceforth a Syro-Phoenician meant a native of this sub-province (Lucian, De Cone. Deor. § 4), which included Phoenicia Proper, Damascus, and Pal- mjTene (see Rawlinson, Herod, iv, 243 sq.). — Smith.
Syropiilus (also Sguropui.us, ^yovp6irov\oQ,
'S.yovpoQ), Sylvester, a writer on the history of the Council of Ferrara and Florence (1438 sq.), who himself participated in its business, and was one of the most de- termined opponents of the union between the churches of the East and West upon Avliich the emperor, John Palaiologus, liad set his heart. So far did he carry his opposition that he found it advisable to resign his place as one of the six debaters in the council, and came into violent antagonism with both the patriarch and the emperor. lie yielded to the emperor's commands and threats, however, so far as to sign the decree of union which had been adopted, but afterwards deplored the weakness of his action. He was a legal officer (ciKai- 6<pv\a^) and a chief sacristan (jwsyng tKK\riaiupxi]c) at Constantinople, and also one of the five dignitaries about the patriarch who were allowed to wear the badge of the cross upon their robes; but his want of firmness in the matter of the treaty of union with the Latin Church rendered him unpopular at home and thus caused him to retire from public life. He devoted his leisure to tlie composition of a "true history of the untrue union between the Greeks and the Latins," thereby exciting against himself the anger of the Lat- ins and their friends in turn, so that Romish writers like Labbe and Allatius class him nnqualifiedly with Grecian liars and the worst sort of schismatics.
The work of Syropulus has important and undeniable value as a source for the history of the Synod of Ferrara. It presents a credible view of events personally engaged in by the author, and defends a position actualh' repre- sented in the council, besides revealing to view a series of connected and involved incidents which, but for its narration, could not have been known at this day. The later criticism of Allatius may, nevertheless, have cor- rected some minor particulars of the narrative. The ob- ject of the book was to show that a real union was im- possible, though the leaders on both sides, the pope, Bessarion, the patriarch, the emperor, etc., steadilj' drew nearer to each otlicr, until the necessities of the Greeks decided the result, which Sj'ropulus justly characterizes as a compromise (fiecrvTijc) rather than a union. The final drafting of the terms of union involved extraordi- nary difficulties (sect, viii, 14). Book xii relates the disagreements of the Greeks while returning from the synod, and their discouraging recejition at home.
The work is extant in a single edition based on a codex of the Bibliotheca Regia (N. 1247), from which Serrarius caused it to be copied in 1642 and sent to Isaac Vossius for publication ; but Sir Edward Hj-de, the English ambassador, caused the manuscript to be placed at the disposal of Robert Creyghton, chaplain at the court of Charles II and, later, bishop of Bath. The latter issued the book in the original Greek and accom- panied it with a Latin translation under the title Vera Hist. Unionis non Verm inter Greecos et Latinos, etc. (Ha- gx Comitis, 1660), besides prefixing to it a eulogy of Syropulus and of the Grecian theology and Church as compared with the papal, which rendered the work still more unpalatable to Romish readers. Allatius accord- ingly prepared a refutation, directed more especiallv at Creyghton, entitled In R. Creyghtoni Apparat., Versio- nem et A^ot. ad Hist. Cone. Florentini, etc. (Rom. 1665), pt. i. Crej'ghton's edition and also the Paris codex are incomplete, as the whole of the first book is wanting; but several other manuscript copies of SjTopulus exist, so that the deficiency may perhaps be met. See Creygh- ton's preface, rthi srtp.; Oudini Comment, iii, 2418 ; Cave, Hist. Liter. A\)pend.; Schriikh, xxxiv, 411. — Herzog, Real-Encyldop. s. v.
Syrtis {'S.vpTic, "quicksands," Acts xxvii, 17). There were two quicksands on the coast of North Af- rica, between Cvrene and Cartilage, whose shoals and eddies the ancient mariners greatlv feared (Horace, Odes, i, 22, 5 ; Ovid, Fast, iv, 490 ; Tibull. ii, 4, 91). The greater of these was named Syrtis Major, or Magna, and the lesser Syrtis Minor ; and old geographers used to tell many marvels respecting them (Strabo, ii, 123;