(ssar' uh cyoosse) Major city on the island of Sicily. Paul stayed in the Syracuse harbor three days on his way to Rome (Acts 28:12 ). It was strong enough to defeat an attack from Athens in 413 B.C. but was defeated by Rome in 212 B.C. It became the residence of the governor of Sicily under Roman government. It enjoyed great prosperity during the Roman years.

SYRACUSE , on the east coast of Sicily, was the principal city in the island. It was originally a Greek colony of ancient date, which was powerful enough to defeat the famous Athenian Sicilian expedition (b.c. 415 412). Its kings were often men of distinction, even in literature, of which they were noted patrons. The city had a varied career, being sometimes a kingdom, sometimes a democracy. In b.c. 241 the Romans took the western half of Sicily from the Carthaginians, but remained in alliance with the kings of Syracuse. The last king of Syracuse coquetted with the Carthaginians; the city was besieged and captured by Marcellus in 212, and the whole island was henceforth under a prætor, who had two quæstors, one situated at Lilybæum in the W., the other at Syracuse. The city continued prosperous down till about the end of the 2nd cent. b.c. After that date it declined in importance, though it remained the capital of the eastern half of the island. In NT times a large number of the inhabitants were Roman citizens.

St. Paul’s ship lay at anchor in the harbour for three days, when he was on his way from Malta to Rome (Acts 28:12 ). He did not preach there. Christian memorials at Syracuse are not specially early.

A. Souter.

(Συράκουσαι, now Siragosa)

Syracuse was situated on the east coast of Sicily, about midway between the modern Catania and Cape Passaro, and was the wealthiest and most powerful of the Greek cities in the island. ‘So great riches,’ says Strabo (VI. ii. 4), ‘have accrued to the Syracusans that their name is embodied in the proverb applied to those who have too great wealth, viz. that they have not yet attained to a tithe of the wealth of the Syracusans.’ In the 4th cent. b.c. Syracuse defied Athens, when the latter was at the height of her power, and came off victorious. And Syracuse coveted a higher fame than that of warlike prowess. At the Court of her kings were to be found such men of letters as Pindar and aeschylus, while the splendid site which Nature had given her was adorned with some of the finest buildings in the world. There was that in Syracuse which led her admirers to exaggerate. Cicero (in Verr. II. iv. 52) calls her ‘the greatest of Greek cities and the most beautiful of all cities.’ But in the year of Cicero’s death (43 b.c.) Syracuse, and indeed the whole of Sicily, suffered terribly at the hands of Sextus Pompeius; and, though Strabo (loc. cit.) praises Augustus for sending thither a colony and to a great extent restoring the city to its former importance, the geographer’s other words scarcely bear out this flattering statement.

In the Greater or the Lesser Port of this city, under the citadel of Ortygia and close to the fountain of Arethusa, the Alexandrian corn-ship in which St. Paul was sailing from Melita to Puteoli had to tarry three days for a favourable wind. How the Apostle spent those days can only be conjectured. Conybeare and Howson not only suggest that Julius was probably courteous enough to let him go ashore, but have no difficulty in giving credit to the local tradition which makes St. Paul the first founder of the Sicilian Church (The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 1877, ii. 429 f.). W. M. Ramsay, on the other hand, holds that, as the ship was simply waiting a suitable wind, no prisoner was likely to be allowed leave of absence (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iv. 645b). Between these theories of a fruitful activity and an enforced idleness there may be room for a via media. If St. Paul was permitted to go into the city, with a charge to note the wind and return the moment it veered to the right direction, he would probably find that there were many Jews and proselytes in that great centre of commerce, though no ancient writer seems to allude to a Jewish colony. And that he would redeem the time is certain. But as to the actual introduction of Christianity into Sicily, whether then or at a later date, history is silent, though the extensive catacombs in the Achradina quarter tell their own tale.

Literature.-W. Smith, Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography , 1868, article ‘Syracusae’; J. Führer and V. Schultze, Die altchristlichen Grabstätten Siziliens, 1907; C. Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily15, 1908, pp. 406-420.

James Strahan.

A city on the south-east coast of Sicily, where Paul landed and remained three days when on his way to Rome (Acts 28:12 ). It was distinguished for its magnitude and splendour. It is now a small town of some 13,000 inhabitants.

A great city in the E. of Sicily. Paul arrived there from Melita ("Malta") on his way to Rome (Acts 28:12). A convenient place for the Alexandrian grain ships to touch at, for the haven was good and the water from the fountain Arethusa excellent. The prevalent wind in this part of the Mediterranean, the W.N.W., would carry the vessel from Malta round the S. of Sicily to the eastern shore on which lay Syracuse. They waited three days there for the wind, then by a circuitous course, necessitated by the direction of the wind, reached Rhegium.

City on the eastern coast of Sicily, at which port the ship touched that conveyed Paul to Rome. Acts 28:12 .

a famous city of Sicily, seated on the east side of the island, Acts 28:12 .

Syracuse (sȳr'a-kûse). The celebrated city on the eastern coast of Sicily. Paul arrived there in an Alexandrian ship from Melita, on his voyage to Rome. Acts 28:12. The site of Syracuse rendered it a convenient place for the African corn-ships to touch at, for the harbor was an excellent one, and the fountain Arethusa in the island furnished an unfailing supply of excellent water.

Now Siracasa, a large and celebrated city on the eastern coast of Sicily, furnished with a capacious and excellent harbor. The city, founded 734 B. C., was opulent and powerful, and was divided into four or five quarters or districts, which were of themselves separate cities. The whole circumference is stated by Strabo to have been one hundred and eighty stadia, or about twenty-two English miles. Syracuse is celebrated as having been the birthplace and residence of Archimedes, whose ingenious mechanical contrivances during its siege by the Romans, 200 B. C., long delayed its capture. Paul passed three days here, on his way from Melita to Rome, in the spring of A. D. 63, Acts 28:12 . Population anciently 200,000; now 11,000.