Map of the Roman Empire - Sidon
Sidon
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Ancient Sidon - A maritime city 20 miles north of Tyre and of the tribe of Asher. In ancient times it was in Phoenicia and a chief city of the Phoenicians. Sidon (Zidon) was mentioned in the Bible in Judg. 1:31; 1 Kgs. 17:9; Isa. 23:2, 4, 12; Joel 3:4-8; Matt. 11:21; Acts 27:3. The Bible also mentioned "The Great Zidon" in Josh. 11:8; 19:28). According to the Bible Sidon derived its origin and name from Sidon, the firstborn son of Canaan (4th son of Ham). The modern name is Saida.
Judg. 1:31 - Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob:
1 Kgs. 17:9 - Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which [belongeth] to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
Isa. 23:2 - Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle; thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.
Isa. 23:4 - Be thou ashamed, O Zidon: for the sea hath spoken, [even] the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, [nor] bring up virgins.
Isa. 23:12 - And he said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O thou oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon: arise, pass over to Chittim; there also shalt thou have no rest.
Joel 3:4-8 - Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly [and] speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things: The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompence upon your own head: And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken [it].
Matt. 11:;21 - Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Acts 27:3 - And the next [day] we touched at Sidon. And Julius courteously entreated Paul, and gave [him] liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself.
Josh. 11:8 - And the LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote them, and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrephothmaim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they smote them, until they left them none remaining.
Josh. 19:28 - And Hebron, and Rehob, and Hammon, and Kanah, [even] unto great Zidon;
Sidon (Σιδών, Old Test. Zidon). Now Saida; a city of Phœnicia, long the most powerful of that country's towns. It stood in a plain about a mile from the Mediterranean Sea, and some twenty miles north of Tyre, and with a double harbour of considerable extent, now filled with sand. Until Tyre wrested from it the maritime supremacy, it was the greatest commercial city of the Phœnicians. When Xerxes invaded Greece, the people of Sidon furnished his expedition with the best ships in the whole fleet, so that the king of Sidon had the chief place in the council of the Persian king. The city was burned at the time of its revolt against Artaxerxes III. (B.C. 351), but was rebuilt, and later fell with the whole of Phœnicia under the control of the Romans. See Phœnicé. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.
Sidon,or Saïda, (Arabic: صيدا, Ṣaydā; Phoenician: , Ṣydwn; Greek: Σιδών; Latin: Sidon; Hebrew: צידון, Ṣīḏōn, Turkish: Sayda) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km (25 mi) north of Tyre and 40 km (25 mi) south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery... In the years before Jesus, Sidon had many conquerors: Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and finally Romans. Herod the Great visited Sidon. Both Jesus and Saint Paul are said to have visited it. The city was eventually conquered by the Arabs and then by the Ottoman Turks. Like other Phoenician city-states, Sidon suffered from a succession of conquerors. At the end of the Persian era in 351 BC, it was invaded by the emperor Artaxerxes III and then by Alexander the Great in 333 BC when the Hellenistic era of Sidon began. Under the successors of Alexander, it enjoyed relative freedom and organized games and competitions in which the greatest athletes of the region participated. In the Necropolis of Sidon, important finds such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, the Lycian tomb and the Sarcophagus of the Crying Women were discovered, which are now on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum in Istanbul. When Sidon fell under Roman domination, it continued to mint its own silver coins. The Romans also built a theater and other major monuments in the city. In the reign of Elagabalus a Roman colonia was established there, and it was given the name of Colonia Aurelia Pia Sidon. During the Byzantine period, when the great earthquake of AD 551 destroyed most of the cities of Phoenicia. - Wikipedia
Sidon (Zidon), a maritime city of Asher, in Phoenicia, at the month of Bostrenus fl., bet. Porphyrias x. and Sarepta s., 25 m. n. of Tyrus. Built by Sidon, s. of Canaan. The Sidonians, the Poludaidaloi of Homer, were famous for their commercial enterprise and their manufacturing ingenuity. Sidon was the birth-place of Moschus, the atomic philosopher. Sidon; Saide. - Classical Gazetteer
Sidon
SIDON (Σιδών: Eth. Σιδώνιος,), a very ancient and important maritime city of
Phoenicia, which, according to Josephus, derived its origin and name from Sidon,
the firstborn son of Canaan (Gen. 10.15; J. AJ 1.6.2), and is mentioned by Moses
as the northern extremity of the Canaanitish settlements, as Gaza was the
southernmost (Gen. 10.19); and in the blessing of Jacob it is said of Zebulun
“his border shall be unto Sidon” (49.13). At the time of the Eisodus of the
children of Israel, it was already distinguished by the appellation of “the
Great” (Josh. 11.8; compare in LXX. ver. 2), and was in the extreme north border
which was drawn from Mount Hermon (called Mount Hor in Num. 34.7) on the east to
Great Sidon, where it is mentioned in the border of the tribe of Asher, as also
is “the strong city of Tyre.” (Josh. 19.28, 29.) It was one of several cities
from which the Israelites did not disposses the old inhabitants. (Judg. 1.31.)
As the origin of this ancient city, its history, and manufactures, have been
noticed under PHOENICIA, it only remains in this place to speak of its
geographical position and relations so far as they either serve to illustrate,
or are illustrated by, its history.
It is stated by Josephus to have been a day's journey from the site of Dan,
afterwards Paneas (Ant. 5.3.1). Strabo places it 400 stadia S. of Berytus, 200
N. of Tyre, and describes it as situated on a fair haven of the continent. He
does not attempt to settle the questions between the rival cities, but remarks
that while Sidon is most celebrated by the poets (of whom Homer does not so much
as name Tyre), the colonists in Africa and Spain, even beyond the Pillars of
Hercules, showed more honour to Tyre (16.2.22, 24). Herodotus's account of the
origin of the race has been given under PHOENICIA [p. 607b.], and is shown to be
in accordance with that of other writers. Justin follows it, but gives a
different etymology of the name: “Condita urbe, quam a piscium uberitate Sidona
appellaverunt, nam piscem Phoenices Sidon vocant;” but this is an error
corrected by Michaelis and Gesenius (Lex. s. v. HEBREW), who derive it from
HEBREW “to hunt or snare” game, birds, fish, &c., indifferently, so that the
town must have derived its name from the occupation of the inhabitants as
fishers, and not from the abundance of fish; and Ritter refers to the parallel
case of Beth saida on the sea of Tiberias. (Erdkunde, Syrien, vol. iv. p. 43.)
Pliny, who mentions it as “artifex vitri Thebarumque que Boeotiarmn parens,”
places “Sarepta et Ornithon oppida” between it and Tyre (5.19). It is reckoned
xxx. M. P. from Berytus, xxiv. from Tyre, in the Itinerary of Antoninus (p.
149). But the Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum reckons it xxviii. from Berytus,
placing Heldua and Parphirion between (p. 584). Scylax mentions the closed
harbour of Sidon (λιμὴν κλειτός, p. 42, ed. Hudson), which is more fully
described by a later writer, Achilles Tatius (circ. A.D. 500), who represents
Sidon as situated on the Assyrian sea, itself the metropolis of the Phoenicians,
whose citizens were the ancestors of the Thebans. A double harbour shelters the
sea in a wide gulf; for where the bay is covered on the right hand side, a
second mouth has been formed, through which the water again enters, opening into
what may be regarded as a harbour of the harbour. In this inner basin, the
vessels could lie securely during the winter, while the outer one served for the
summer. (Cited by Reland, Palaes. p. 1012). This inner port Reland conjectures,
with great probability, is the closed port of Scylax, and to be identified with
the second harbour described by Strabo at Tyre, where he says there was one
closed and another open harbour, called the Egyptian. The best account of the
site is given by Pococke. “It was situated,” he says, “on a rising ground,
defended by the sea on the north and west. The present city is mostly on [2.997]
the north side of the hill. The old city seems to have extended further east, as
may be judged from the foundations of a thick wall, that extends from the sea to
the east; on the south it was probably bounded by a rivulet, the large bed of
which might serve for a natural fosse; as another might which is on the north
side, if the city extended so far, as some seem to think it did, and that it
stretched to the east as far as the high hill, which is about three quarters of
a mile from the present town. . . . On the north side of the town, there are
great ruins of a fine fort, the walls of which were built with very large
stones, 12 feet in length, which is the thickness of the wall; and some are 11
feet broad, and 5 deep. The harbour is now choked up. . . . This harbour seems
to be the minor port mentioned by Strabo (xvi. p.756) for the winter; the outer
one probably being to the north in the open sea between Sidon and Tyre (?),
where the shipping rides in safety during the summer season.” (Observations on
Palestine, p. 86.) The sepulchral grots are cut in the rock at the foot of the
hills; and some of them are adorned with pilasters, and handsomely painted.
The territory of the Sidonians, originally circumscribed towards the north by
the proximity of the hostile Gibbites, extended southwards to the tribe of
Zebulon, and Mount Carmel; but was afterwards limited in this direction also by
the growing power of their rivals the Tyrians. (Ritter, l.c. p. 43, &c.)
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.