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 590 SAME SAMOAN ISLANDS at Nablus, the ancient Shechem. Attempts have been made by Europeans to maintain a correspondence with the remnants of the Sa- maritans ; as by Joseph Scaliger in the latter part of the 16th century, by several learned men in England in 1675, by the Ethiopic scholar Ludolf in 1684, and by Sylvestre de Sacy and others. All the letters of the Samaritans writ- ten on these occasions, with an essay on their history by De Sacy, may be found in Notices et extraits des manittcrits de la Mbliotheque du roi (vol. xii., Paris, 1831). The best modern accounts of them are by the Americans Fisk ("Missionary llerald," 1824) and Robinson ("Biblical Researches," vol. iii.), and Guerin, .Description geographique, historique et archeo- loyique de la Palestine, deuxieme part, Samaria (Paris, 1875). The Samaritans recognize, of the books of the Old Testament, only the Pen- tateuch, rejecting all the rest of the Hebrew canon, together with the traditions of the Pharisees. Of the Pentateuch they have a translation in the Samaritan language, an Ara- iiKivtu dialect, mixed with many Hebrew forms and words. In the same language are written their rituals and liturgies, and a number of psalms. (See Gesenius, Carmina Samaritana, in his Anecdota Orientalia, Leipsic, 1824.) They have also preserved an ancient Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, first described in Eu- rope by Morinus in 1628 (after a copy bought by Pietro della Vallo from the Samaritans in Damascus), and shortly after published in the Paris polyglot. It is of considerable impor- tance, agreeing with the Septuagint in a vast number of places where that differs from the ordinary Hebrew text, though Gesenius has proved the studied design of the Samaritan re- visers to conform their text to their peculiar anti-Jewish tenets, and the blundering way in which they executed their emendations. It is written in the old Hebrew characters, closely resembling the Phoenician. When the Arabic became the conversational language of the Sa- maritans, all their works were translated into it ; and they have also in Arabic a so-called book of Joshua. (See JOSHUA.) We know from the New Testament that the Samaritans, like the Jews, were waiting for a Messiah, who in their later writings is called Hashshaheb or Hatta- heb, i. c., the Restorer. Their later writings also prove their belief in spirits and angels, in the immortality of the soul, and in the resur- rection. They observe the Mosaic ordinances concerning the sabbath, and many other pre- scriptions of the Mosaic law. See Juynboll, Commentarii Historic Gentit Samaritana (Leyden, 1846), and John W. Nutt, ."Frag- ments of a Samaritan Targum," edited from a Bodleian manuscript, and containing a sketch of Samaritan history (London, 1874). SAME, or S;m<>. See CEPHALONIA. S.UIXIUM, a division of ancient Italy, bound- ed N. W. by the territories of the Marsi, Pe- ligni, and Marrucini, N. E. by that of the Frentani, E. by Apulia, S. by Lucania, and S. W. and W. by Campania and Latium, and comprising most of the present provinces of Campobasso and Benevento, with some sur- rounding districts. The country is occupied by some of the highest mountain groups of the central Apennines. It was watered by the upper courses of the Sagrus (now Sangro), Tifernus (Biferno), Frento (Fortore), Autidus (Ofanto), and Vulturnus (Volturno), all of which, except the last, flow into the Adriatic. The principal places were Beneventum (Bene- vento), Caudium (Airola) near which were the narrow passes called Caudine Forks, where a defeated Roman army passed under the yoke in 321 B. C. Aufidena (Alfidena), Bovianum (Bojano), and ^Esernia (Isernia). The Sam- nites were a warlike people of the Sabine race, who conquered the country from the Opicans before the foundation of Rome. With this republic they waged a series of wars, in which Valerius Corvus, Curius Dentatus, Papirius Cursor, Fabius Maximus Rullianus, and other Romans shine as heroes amid frequent calam- ities and humiliating defeats of their country- men (343-290 B. C.). They were finally sub- dued, joined Pyrrhus in 280, but succumbed again, and in 216 took sides with Hannibal, but without any permanent result. They rose again together with other Italians in the social war (90), and were the last of the allies to yield. During the war of Sulla and Marius they tried to recover their independence ; but their army was annihilated by Sulla in a battle at the Colline gate of Rome, and their country laid waste and distributed to Roman settlers, the inhabitants being sold into slavery (82). S A MO AN ISLANDS, or Navigators' Islands, a group in the S. Pacific, about 400 m. N. E. of the Feejee islands, between lat. 13 27' and 14 18' S., and Ion. 169 28' and 172 48' W. They include nine inhabited islands, viz. : Manua, Olosinga, Ofu, Anuu, Tutuila, Upolu, Manono, Apolima, and Savaii ; area, according to recent authorities, which reduce the figures of Com. Wilkes's survey of 1839, about 1,125 sq. m. ; pop. in 1869, 85,107. Besides these, there are at the E. end of Upolu four islets, Nuulua, Nu- tali, Taputapu, and Namoa, and between Mano- no and Apolima an isolated islet called Niulapo. All the islands and islets are of volcanic for- mation, though the latter are separated from the former by coral reefs. There are extinct volcanoes on most of the islands, and the na- tives have no traditions of eruptions from any of them; but in 1867 a submarine volcano burst out of the ocean between Manua and Olosinga, and for two weeks shot up jets of mud and dense columns of sand and stones to a height of 2,000 ft. It left no permanent protrusion above the bed of the sea, and it is said to be difficult now to obtain soundings on its site. Manua, the most easterly island of the group, which has an area of about 20 sq. m., rises like a dome to the height of 2,500 ft. Olosinga is a narrow ledge of rocks with a double coral reef around it, the outer shelf