Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1020

 1000 SILACENAE. SILACE'XAE, a place in Lower Pannonia, on the south of Lake Peiso. (/^ Ant. p. 233, where it appears in the ablat. form Silacenis). Its exact site is unknown. [L. S.] SILANA, a town in the NW. of Thessaly, near the frontiers of Athamania, mentioned along with Gomphi and Tricca by Livy. Leake conjectures that it occupied the site of PoVuina, near which are several squared blocks of ancient workmanship. (Liv. sxxvi. 13; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 529.) SI'LAEUS (Si'Aapoy, Ptol ; SiXapiy, Strab. : SeJc), a considerable river of Southern Italy, flowing into the gulf of Posidonia, and forming the boundary between Campania and Lucania. It rises in the mountains near Teora, on the confines of the Hir- pini, and not far from the sources of the Aufidus ; thence flows for so.iie distance in a southerly direction till it receives the waters of the Tanager {Tanagro), a considerable stream, which joins it from the SE.; it then turns to the SW. and pursues that direction to the sea, which it enters about 5 miles to the N. of the city of Paestum. About 5 miles from its mouth it receives another important tributary in the Calor {Calore), which joins it from the S. Between the Calor and Tanager, on the S. bank of the Silarus rises the mountain group of Jlount Alburnus, men- tioned by Virgil in connection with that river. The " luci Silari " of the same author are evidently the same with the extensive woods which still clothe the valley of the Sele from its confluence with the Tanagro to within a few miles of the sea. (Virg. Georg. iii. 146.) The Silarus was in the days of Strabo and Pliny the recognised boundary between Campania (including under that name the land of the Picentiiii) and Lucania; but this applies only to its course near its mouth, as Eburi (Eboll), though situated to the N. of it, is included by Pliny among the towns of Lucania. (Strab. v. p. 251, vi. p. 252; Plin. iii. 5. ss. 9, 10, 11. s. 15; Ptoh iii. 1. § 8; Mel. ii. 4. § 9; Tab. Pent..; Dionys. Per. 361.) A pecu- liarity of its waters, mentioned by several ancient writers, is that they had the power of petrifying sticks, leaves, and other substances immersed in them. (Strab. v. p. 251 ; Phn. ii. 103. s. 106; Sil. Ital. viii. 582.) The name is written by Lucan and Columella Siler, and the same form is found in Vibius Sequester, indicating an approach to the modem name of Sele. (Lucan, ii. 426 ; Colum. .. 136; Vib. Seq. p. 18.) [E.H.B.] SILAS (2i^s, Arrian, lud. c. 6; Strab. sv. p. 703; Diod. ii. 37), a river of the Upper Punjab, the story of which, as told by ancient writers, is clearly fabulous. According to Arrian and others, the water of this river was so light that nothing could swim in it. Lassen, who has examined this story with his usual acuteness, has sliown from the Mahabhdrata that there was a stream in the nor- thern part of India called the Sila, the water of ■which was endowed with a highly petrifying power, from which circumstance the river obtained its signification, Sila meaning in Sanscrit a stone. (^Zeitsckr. f. Kimde des Morgenlands, ii. p. 63.) It may be remarked that the name occurs differently ■written. Thus Diodorus writes SiAAai' noTafxav- Antigonus SiAoi/ Kpijvqv. (^Mirab. c. 161.) Pliny evidently refers to the .same story, but calls the river Side in his quotation from Ctesias (xxxi. 2. 6. 18). [V.] SI'LBIUJI (StAgio)/: Eth. Silbianus), a small SILO. town of Phrygia, on the east of Apamea and Celaenae, and beyond the source of the JIaeander (Ptol. v. 2. § 25 ; Phn. v. 29). In the Byzantine writers it is sometimes mentioned under corrupt forms of its name, such as Silbia (HierocI p. 667), Sublas (Cinnamus, vi. 15), or Sublium and Syblaea (Oriens Christ, p. 809). This place, which w:is the see of a bishop, belonged to the conventus of Ap.amea. Modern travellers seek its site in the neighbourhood of SanduUi. (Kiepert, in Franz's Fimf Inschriften, p. 37.) [L. S.] SILI orSIMI (2i'Aoi or 2(^01, Strab. xvi. p. 772), a tribe of Aethiopians, who used the horns of tlic oryx, a species of gazelle, as weapons. Some have considered them to be the same as the AiSioTrer 2i/xoi of Agatharchides. p. 42. (Comp. Diodor. iii. 8.) ' [T. H. D.] SILICEXSE FLUMEN, a river in Hispania Baetica, in the neighbourhood of Corduba, probably the Guadajoz, or one of its tributaries. (Hirt. B. ^.57.) [T. H.D.] SILINDIUM (2:AiV5ioi'), a small town of Truas at the foot of Jlount Ida, is mentioned only by Stephanus B. (s. v.) on the authority of Demetrius of Scepsis. [L. S.] SILINGAE (2iAi77a, a tribe of Germany, on the south of the Semnones, between the western slopes of Mons Asciburgius and the river Albis. (Ptol. ii. 11. § 18.) It is generally supposed that this name is the one from which the modern Silesia or Schlesien is formed. (Latham, Tacit. Germ. p. 138 ; Palackv, Gesch. von Bohmen, vol. i. p. 68.) ' [L. S.] SILIS (Sele), a small river of Venetia, in the X. of Italy, which rises in the mountains above Treviso (Tarvasium), and flows into the lagunes at Altinum (^Altino). It is still called ihtSele. (Plin. iii. 18. s. 22.) [E. H. B.] SILLA(2iAAo,Tsid.Charax,§2,ed.Miiller,1855), a river of Apolloniatis, a district of Assyria, which, according to Isidorus, flows through the centre of the town of Artemita. [Artesuta.] There can be little doubt that this is the river now called the Diyaleh. It is also, in all probability, the same as that called by Steph. B. (.s. v. 'ATrd/xna) the Delas. Forbiger imagines that the Diabus of Ammianus (sxiii. 6), the Durus of Zosimus (iii. 25), and the Gorgos of Ptolemy (iv. 1. § 7), refer to the same river. It is, however, more likely that the first of these streams is the same as that elsewhere called the Zaba- tus. [V.] SILO or SHILOH (27jAc£/i: Eth. STjAwj/frTjs), a town of Palestine, in the tribe of Ephraim, in the mountain region according to Josephus {Aiit. v. 1), where the ark and the tabernacle were first established by Joshua on the settlement of the land by the tribes of Israel. There also were assembled the national convocations for the division of the land and the trans- action of other public business affecting the whole Union. (^Joshua, xviii. 1, 10, xix. 51, xxi. 2, xxii. 9.) There Samuel ministered before the Lord in the days of Eli the high-priest (1 Sam. i. — iii.). There was the seat of the Divine worship until the disastrous battle of Aphek, from which period the decline of Shiloh must be dated (ch. iv.) until its desolation became proverbial in Israel. (^Psalm Ixxviii. 60 ; Jeremiah, vii. 12, xxvi. 6, 9.) Its situation is very particularly described in the book of Judges (xxi. 19), as '' on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah."