Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/925

 SARACENI. wandering tribes. As tlieir nomadic and migratory habits were described by tlie latter, so their preda- tory propensities, according to the most probable interpretation of the name, was by the former, for the Arabic verb Sarcika, according to lexicographers, signifies " to plunder." (Bochart, Geog. Sac. lib. iv. cap. 2, pp. 213, 214.) The derivation of the name from Sarah has been rejected by nearly all critics as historically erroneous; and the fact that the name was in use many centuries before Jloham- med, at once negatives the theory that it was adopted by him or his followers, in order to remove the stigma of their servile origin from Hagar the bond- woman. (Reland, Palaestina, p. 87.) This author maintains that " Saraceni nil nisi orientales populos notat:" deriving the word from the Arabic sluiraka == ortus fuit; and as unhappily the Greek alphabet cannot discriminate between sin and shin, and the name does not occiu* in the native authors, there is nothing to determine the etymology. Mr. Forster, in defiance of Bocharl's severe sentence, " Qui ad Saram referunt, nugas agunt " {Geog. Sac. i. 2, p. 213), argues for the matronymic derivation from Sarah, and shows that the country of Edom, or the mountains and territory bordering on the Saracena of classic authors, are called " the country, moun- tains, &c. of Sarah" by the Jews; and he main- tains that, as this tract derived its name of Edom and Idumaea from the patriarch Esau, so did it that of Sarah from Sarah the wife of Abraham, the acknowledged mother of the race. {Geog. of Ara- bia, vol. ii. pp. 17 — 19.) His attempt to identify the Saraceni with the Amalekites is not so success- ful; for however difficult it may be to account for the appearance of the latter in the Kephidim (^Exod. svii. 1, 8 ; Eepiiidim), which was the country of Saracena, yet their proper seat is fixed beyond doubt in the south of the promised land, in the hill-country immediately north of the wilderness of Paran, near to Kadesh {Numh. xiii. 29); and it is impossible to understand "the valley" in xiv. 25, and " the bill " in siv. 45, of Iloreb, as Mr. Forster docs, since the whole context implies a position far to the north of the district of lloreb, marked by the following stations: Taberab, 3 days' journey from " the Mount of the Lord " (x. 33, xi. 3); Kibroth-hattaavah, Hazeroth, the wilderness of Paran (xi. 34, 35, xii. 16, compare xxsiii. 16 — 18). It must indeed be admitted that the name of the Amalekites is occasionally used, in a much wider acceptation than its proper one, of all the Edomite tribes, throughout Northern Arabia, as e. g. in 1 Sam. XV. 7 ; and similarly the name Saraceni is extended in M.ircian's Periplus, already cited: but it seems more natural to interpret the words ol KaXov/xevoi 2apa- KTjcol, vKeiovas ex"*^^ irpoa-qyopias of the general name of several specific tribes, marking common habits or common position rather than common origin, according to the analogy of the Scenitae in old times and of Bedaunn = " deserti incolae," in modern times; p.articularly .as it does not appear that the name was ever adopted by the Arabs themselves, who would not have been slow to appropriate an honourable appellation, which would identify them with the great patriarch. That their predatory cha- racter had become early established is manifest from the desperate expedient resorted to l)y the emperor Decius in order to repress their encroachments. lie is said to have brought lions and lionesses from Africa and turned them loose on the borders of Arabia and Palestine, as far as the Circisium Castrum, SAKAPIS INS. 905 that they might breed and propagate against the S;ira- cens. {Chron. A lex. in a.m. 5760, Olymp. 257, Ind. xiv. = A. D. 251.) This strong fortress, called by Proco]iius Circcsium (KipKrtffiov (ppovptou), the most remote of the Koniau garrisons, which was fortified by Diocletian (Annn. Marc, xxiii. 5), was situated on the angle formed by the confluence of the Abor- rhas (K/iabour) and the Euphrates (it is still called Karkisia), .so that it is clear that, in the time of Procopius, the name of Saraceni was given to the Arab tribes from Egypt to the Euphrates. Con- sistently with this view, he calls Zenubia's husband Odonathes, *• king of the Saracens in those parts " {Bill. Pers. ii. 5, p. 288);- and Belisarius's Arab contingent, under their king Aretas ('Ape0as) be likewise calls Saracens (ii. 16, p. 308). That Eo- man general describes them (c. 19, p. 312) as in- capable of building fortifications, but adepts at plunder, which character again justifies the ety- mology above preferred; while it is clear from these and other passages that the use of the name had become established merely as a general name, and precisely equivalent to Arab (see Bell. Pers. i. 19, p. 261), and was accordingly adopted and appJied indifferently to all the followers of Mohanmied by the writers of the middle ages. [G. W.l SARALA. [Saudinia.] SAKA'LIUM or SARALUS (SapaAoy), a town of tiie Trocmi in Galatia, on the east of the river Halys. {Tah. Pent.; Ptol. v. 9. § 4.) [L. S.] SARAME'NE {^apapirii'n), a district of Pontus, on the bay of Amisus. (Strab. xii. p. 547 ; conij>. POXTUS.) [L. S.] SARANGA (ra ^dpayya), a small place on the coast of Gedrosia between the Indus and the Arabis. It was visited by Nearchus in his coast voyage to Persia (Arrian, Ind. c. 22). It has been conjectured by jluller {Geogr. Graec. Min. I. c, ed. Paris) that it is the same as the ')?i^ava of Ptolemy (vi. 21. § 2). [V.] SARANGAE. [Drangiana.] SARANGES {'S,apdyyr]s), a small tributary of the Hydraotes {irdvati), mentioned by Arrian {Ind. e. 4) in his list of Indian rivers. It is doubtless the Sanscrit Sarungu, though it has not been determined to what stream this Indian name applies. [v.] SARAPANA {'S.apa-Kavd, Strab. xi. p. 500; 2a- pairavis, Procop. B. G. iv. 14), a strong position in Iberia, upon the river Pliasis, identified with Sc/ia- rapani in Imiretia, on the modern road which leads from Miiigrelia into Georgia over Swam. (Comp. Journ. Geog. Soc. vol. iii. p. 34.) [E. B. J.] SARAPARAE {^apatrdpai, Strab. xi. p. 531; Plin. vi. 16. s. 18), a Thracian people, dwelling be- yond Aririenia near the Guranii and Medi, according to Strabo, who describes tiiem as a savage, lawless, and mountainous people, who scali)ed and cut ofi" heads {irepiaKvBKrTas Ka awoicecpaKiards). The latter is said by Strabo to be the meaning of their name, which is confirmed by tiie fiict that in the Persian sar means " head " and para " division." (Anquetil, Sur les arte. Langues de la Perse, in Man. de VAcad. (jr. vol. xxxi. p. 419, quoted in Kramer's Strab. vol. ii. p. SOU; comp. Groskurd's Strab. vol. ii. p. 439.) SARAPIONIS PORTUS. [Niionis Duomus.] SARAl'lS INS. (2apa7ri5os fiinoi), an island off the South Coast of Arabia, mentioned by the author of the Periplus ascribed to Arrian {Geog. Graec. Min. vol. i. p. 19, Hudson) as situated 2000 stadia east