wandering tribes. As their nomadic and migratory
habits were described by the latter, so their preda-
tory propensities, according to the most probable
interpretation of the name, was by the former, for
the Arabic verb Saraka, 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 Moham-
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 occur 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 Rephidim
(Exod. xvii. 1, 8; Rephidim), 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 (Numb. xiii.
29); and it is impossible to understand "the valley"
in xiv. 25, and "the hill" in siv. 45, of Horeb, as
Mr. Forster docs, since the whole context implies a
position far to the north of the district of Horeb,
marked by the following stations: Taberah, 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 xxxiii. 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
Marcian's Periplus, already cited: but it seems more
natural to interpret the words (
Greek characters) 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 Bedwaín = "deserti incolae," in
modern times; particularly 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 by the emperor
Decius in order to repress their encroachments. He
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,
that they might breed and propagate against the Sara-
cens. (Chron. Alex. in a.m. 5760, Olymp. 257, Ind.
xiv. = A.D. 251.) This strong fortress, called by
Procopius Circesium ((Greek characters)), 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 (Khabour) 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 Zenobia'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 ((Greek characters)) he
likewise calls Saracens (ii. 16, p. 308). That Ro-
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 applied
indifferently to all the followers of Mohammed by
the writers of the middle ages. [G. W.]
SARALA. [Saudinia.]
SAKA'LIUM or SARALUS ((Greek characters)), a town
of tiie Trocmi in Galatia, on the east of the river
Halys. {Tah. Peut.; Ptol. v. 9. § 4.) [L. S.]
SARAME'NE ((Greek characters)), a district of Pontus,
on the bay of Amisus. (Strab. xii. p. 547 ; comp.
Pontus.) [L. S.]
SARANGA ((Greek characters)), 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 Müller {Geogr. Graec. Min. I. c, ed. Paris) that
it is the same as the (Greek characters) of Ptolemy (vi. 21.
§ 2). [V.]
SARANGAE. [Drangiana.]
SARANGES ((Greek characters)), a small tributary of
the Hydraotes (Irávati), 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 ((Greek characters), Strab. xi. p. 500; (Greek characters), Procop. B. G. iv. 14), a strong position in
Iberia, upon the river Pliasis, identified with Scha-
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 ((Greek characters), 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 scalped and cut off
heads ((Greek characters)). 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
Mém. de l'Acad. &c. vol. xxxi. p. 419, quoted in
Kramer's Strab. vol. ii. p. 500; comp. Groskurd's
Strab. vol. ii. p. 439.)
SARAPIONIS PORTUS. [Niionis Duomus.]
SARAPlS INS. ((Greek characters)), 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
