Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1028

 1008 SINOKIA. .source of revenue, which maintained the city in a tolerable state of prosperity. It possessed ex- tensive suburbs, and numerous villas in its vicinity (Strab. I. c. ; Plin. vi. 2). From I'liny's letter's (x. 91), it appears that the Sinopians suffered some inconvenience from the want of a good supply of water, which Pliny endeavoured to remedy by a grant from the emperor Trajan to build an aqueduct conveying water from a distance of 16 miles. In the time of Arrian and Marcian, Sinope still con- tinued te be a flourishing town. In the middle ages it belonged to the empire of Trebizond, and fell into the hands of the Turks in A. d. 1470, in the reign of JMohammed II. Sinope is also remarkable as the birthplace of several men of eminence, such as Diogenes the Cynic, Baton, the historian of Persia, and Diphilus, the comic poet. Near Sinope was a small island, called Scopelus, around which large vessels were obliged to sail, be- fore they could enter the harbour; but small craft might pass between it and the land, by which means a circuit of 40 stadia was avoided (Marcian, p. 72, &c.) The celebrated Sinopian cinnabar (Su'cdttik?) //.(Ktos. ^ivujirh or '^.ivcoTTiKi] yfi) was not a product of the district of Sinope, but was designated by this name only because it formed one of the cliief articles of trade at Sinope. (Groskurd on Straho, vol. ii. p. 457, foil.) The imperial coins of Sinope that are known, extend from Augustus to Gallienus. (Sestini, Num. Vet. p. 63; Kasche, Lex. Num. iv. 2. p. 1105, foil.) Sinope, now called Sinai, is still a town of some importance, but it contains only few remains of its former magnificence. The wall across the isthmus has been built up with fragments of ancient archi lecture, such a.? columns, architraves, &c., and the same is found in several other parts of the modern town; but no distinct ruins of its temples, porticoes, or even of the great aqueduct, are to be seen. (Ha- milton, Researches, vol. i. p. 306, &c.) [L. S.] SINOTUA {Xivopla, Strab. xii. p. 555), a town on the frontier of Armenia ]Iajor, a circumstance which gave rise to a pun of the historian Theophanes who wrote the name '2,vv6pia. The place is no doubt the same as the one called Sinorega by Appian {Mithrid. 101), by Ammianus JIarcellinus (xvii. 7) Synhorium, by Ptolemy (v. 7. § 2) Sinibraor Sinera, and in the Antonine Itinerary (p. 208) Sinervas. The pun upon the name made by Theophanes seems to show that the form Sinoria, which Strabo gi'es, is tlie correct one. The town v,-as a fortress built by IMithridates on the frontier between Greater and Lesser Armenia; but assuming that all the different names mentioned above are only varieties or corrup- tions of one, it is not easy to fix the exact site of the town, for Ptolemy and the Antonine Itinerary place it to the south-west of Satala, on the road from this town to Melitene, and on the Euphrates, while the Table, calling it Sinara, places it 79 miles to the north-east of Satala, on the frontiers of Pontus ; but there can be no doubt that the Sinara of the Table is altogether a different place from Sinoria, and the site of the latter place must be sought on the banks of the Euphrates between Satala and Melitene, whence some identify it with Murad Chai and others with Seni Beli. [L. S.] SINOTIUJI. [Synodium.] SINSU (2Wiot, Ptol. iii. 8. § 5), a people in the S. of Dacia. [T. H. D ] SINTI (Thuc. ii. 98; Steph.B. s.«.; Liv. xlii.51), a Thraciau tribe who occupied the district lying SINUESSA. between the ridge called Cercine and the right (T W. bank of the Strymon, in the upper part of the course of that river, which was called from thence SiNTiCE {1.ivriK-t]. Ptol. iii. 13. § 30). When Macedonia w.is divided into four provinces at the Poman conquest, Sintice was associated with Bisaltia in the First Macedonia, of which Amphipolis was the capital (Liv. xlv. 29). It contained the three towns Heracleia, Paroecopolis, Tkistolus. [E.B.J. ] SINTIES. [Lejinos.] SINUESSA {'Zivovicraa or '2,iv6e(T(Ta: Eth. 2i- voviaa7iv6s, Sinuessanus: Mondragone'), a city of Latium, in the more extended sense of the name, situated on the Tyrrhenian sea, about 6 miles N. of the mouth of the Vulturnus. It was on the line of the Via Appia, and was the last place where that great highroad touched on the sea-coast. (Strab. v. p. 233.) It is certain that Sinuessa was not an an- cient city ; indeed there is no trace of the existence of an Italian town on the spot before the foundation of the Koman colony. Some authors, indeed, men- tion an obscure tradition that there had previously been a Greek city on the spot which was called Sinope ; but little value can be attached to this statement. (Liv. x. 21; Plin. iii. 5. s. 9.) It is certain that if it ever existed, it had wholly dis- appeared, and the site was included in the territory of the Ausonian city of Vescia, when the Romans determined to establish simultaneously the two colo- nies of Minturnae and Sinuessa on the Tyrrhenian sea. (Liv. x. 21.) The name of Sinuessa was derived, according to Strabo, from its situation on the spacious gulf (Sinus), now called the Gulf of Gaetu. (Strab. v. p. 234.) The object of esta- blishing these Colonies was chiefly for the purpose of securing the neighbouring fertile tract of country from the ravages of the Samnites, who had already repeatedly overrun the district. But for this very reason the plebeians at Rome hesitated to give their names, and there was some difficulty found in carry- ing out the colony, which was, however, settled in the following year, b. c. 296. (Liv. x. 21; Veil. Pat. i. 14.) Sinuessa seems to have rapidly risen into a place of importance; but its territory was severely ravaged by Hannibal in b. c. 217, whose cavalry carried their devastations up to the very gates of the town. (Liv. xxii. 13, 14.) It subse- quently endeavoured, in comnion with Minturnae and other " coloniae maritimae," to establish its exemp- tion from furnishing military levies; but this was overruled, while there was an enemy with an army in Italy. (Id. xxvii. 38.) At a later period (b. c. 191) they again attempted, but with equal ill suc- cess, to procure a similar exemption from the naval service. (Id. xxxvi. 3.) Its position on the Appian Way doubtless contributed greatly to the pros- perity of Sinuessa; for the same reason it is fre- quently incidentally mentioned by Cicero, and we learn that Caesar halted there for a night on his way from Brundusium to Rome, in b. c. 49. (Cic. ad Alt. ix. 15, 16, xiv. 8, ad Fam. xii. 20.) It is noticed also by Horace on his journey to Brundu- sium, as the place where he met with his friends Varius and Virgil. {Sat. i. 5. 40.) The fertihty of its territoiy, and especially of the neighbouring ridge of the Mons Massicus, so celebrated for its wines, must also have tended to promote the prosperity of Sinuessa, but we hear little of it under the Roman Empire. It received a body of military colonists, apparently under the Triumvirate {Lib. Col. p. 2.j7), but did not retain the rank of a Colonia, and