Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1029

 SINUS AD GRADUS. is tei-meJ I>y Pliny as well as the Liber Coloniarum only an " oppiduni," or ordinary municipal town. (Piin. iii. 5. s. 9 ; Lib. Col. I. f.) It was the fur- thest town in Latium, as that term was understood in the days of Strabo and Pliny, or " Latium adjec- tum," as the latter author terms it; and its territory extended to the river Savo, which formed the limit between Latium and Campania. (Strab. v. pp. 219, 231, 233; Plin. iii. 5. s. 9; Mel. ii. 4. § 9.) At an earlier period indeed Polybius reckoned it a town of Campania, and Ptolemy follows the same classification, as he makes the Liris the southern limit of Latium (Pol. iii. 91 ; Ptol. iii. 1. § 6); but the division adopted by Strabo and Pliny is probably the most correct. The Itineraries all notice Sinuessa as a still e.'iistin^ town on the Appian Way, and place it 9 miles from Jlinturnae, which is, however, considerably below the truth. (Itin. Ant. ]>. ; Itin. Hier. p. 611; Tab. Peut.) The period of its destruction is unknown. The ruins of Sinuessa are still visible on the sea- coast just below the hill of Mondraffone, which forms the last underfall or extremity of the long ridge of Monte jMassico. The most important are those of an aqueduct, and of an edifice which ap- pears -to have been a triumphal arch ; but the whole plain is covered with fragments of ancient buildings. (Cluver. Ital. p. 1080; Romanelli, vol. iii. p. 486.) At a short distance from Sinuessa were the baths or thermal springs called Aquae Sinuessanae, which appear to have enjoyed a great reputation among the Romans. Pliny tells us they were esteemed a remedy for barrenness in women and for insanity in men. They are already mentioned by Livy as early as the Second Punic War; and though their fame was eclipsed at a later period by tho.se of Baiae and other fashionable watering-places, they still continued in use under the Empire, and were resorted to among others by the emperor Claudius. (Liv. xxii. 13; Tac. Ann. xii. 66; Plin. sx.ti. 2. s. 4.) It was there, also, that the infamous Tigellinus was compelled to put an end to his own life. (Tac. Jliit. i. 72; Plut. 0th. 2.) The mild and warm climate of Sinuessa is extolled by some writers as contributing to the eft'ect of the waters (Tac, Ati7i. xii. 66); hence it is called " Sinuessa tepens " by Silius Italicus, and "mollis Sinuessa " by Martial. (Sil. Ital. viii. 528; Mart. vi. 42.) The site of the waters is still called / Bwjni, and the remains of Roman buildings still exist there. [E. H. B.] SINUS AD GRADUS or AD GRADUS. [Fossa Mariana.] SION, M. (Sicoi/), originally the name of a particular fortress or hill of Jerusalem, but often in the poetical and prophetic books extended to the whole city, especially to the temple, for a reason which will presently be obvious. Sion pro- per has been always assumed by later writers to be the SW. hill of Jerusalem, and this has been taken for granted in the article on Jerusalem [Jeuusale.m, p. 18]. The counter hypothesis of a later writer, however, maintained with great learning, demands some notice ur.der this head. Mr. 'Yri>i> {Antient Jtnisalem, 1855) admits the ciiginal identity of Sion and the city of David, but believes both to have been distinct from the upper city of Josephus, which latter he identifies with the modern Sion, in agreement with other writers. The transference of the name and position of Sion he dates as far back as the return from the Babylonish vol.. ir. SION. 1009 captivity, believing that the Jews had lost the tra- dition of its identity with the city of David; so that, while they correctlj placed the latter, they erroneously fixed the former where it is still found, viz., at the SW. of the Temple Mount, which mount was in fact the proper " Sion," identical with " the city of David;" for it is admitted that the modern Sion is identical not only with that recognised by the Christian (he might have added the Jewish) in- habitants of Jerusalem, and by all Christian (and Jewish) pilgrims and travellers from the days of Constantine, but with the Sion of the later Jewi.sh days, and with that of the Maccabees. The elabo- rate argument by which it is attempted to remove this error of more than 2000 yeans' standing from the topography of Jerusalem, cannot here be stated, much less discussed ; but two considerations may be briefly mentioned, which will serve to vindicate foi- the SW. hill of the city the designation which it has enjoyed, as is granted, since the time of the Baby- lonish captivity. One is grounded on the language of Holy Scripture, the other on Josephus. Of the identity of the original Sion with the city of David, there can be no doubt. Mr. Thrupp (pp. 12, 13) has adduced in proof of it three conclusive passages from Holy Scripture (2 Sam. v. 7 ; 1 Kings, viii. 1 ; 1 Chron. xi. 5). It is singular that he did not see that the second of these passages is utterly irrecon- cilable with the identity of the city of David with the Temple IMount; and that his own attempt to recon- cile it with his theory, is wholly inadequate. Ac- cording to that theory Mount Sion, or the city of David, extended from the NW. angle of the present Haram, to the south of the same enclosure; and the tombs of David, which were certainly in the city of David, he thinks might yet be discovered beneath the south-western part of the Haram (p. 161). That the temple lay on this same mount, between these two points, is not disputed by any one. Now, not to insist upon the difficulty of supposing that the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, where the temple was undoubtedly founded (2 Chron. iii. 1), lay in the very heart of the city of David, from which David had expelled the Jebusites, it is demon- strable, from the contents of the second passage above referred to, that the temple was in no sense in the city of David; for, after the completion of the temple, it is said in that and the parallel passage (H Chron. v. 2, 5, 7) that Solomon and the assembled Israelites brought tip the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Sion, into the temple which he had prepared for it on what Scripture calls Mount Moriah (2 Chron. iii. 1 ). Again, in 2 Samuel, v. 6 — 9, we have the account of David's wresting " the stronghold of Sion, the same is the city of David," out of tlio hands of the Jebu- sites; after which " David dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David." Josephus, in recording the same events, states that David " laid siege to Jerusalem, and took the lower city by assault, while the citadel still held out." {Ant. vii. 3. § 2.) Tiiis citadel is clearly identified with the upper city, both in this passage and in his more detailed description of the city, where he says " that the hill upon which the upper city was built was by far the highest, and on account of its strength was called by King David the fortress" {(ppuvptoy). {Ikll. .Iiid. v. 4. § 1.) We are thus led to a cduclusion directly opposite to that arrived at by iMr. Thrupp, who says tiiat " the accounts in the books of Samuel and (Chronicles re- present David as taking the stronghold of Sion first 3 r