in the low ground below the modern town, may be mentioned. Close to it, among the houses of the modern town, a solid base about 25 ft. square, belonging possibly to a lighthouse or a tomb, records the existence of a temple of Isis and Serapis during the imperial period. A bilingual inscription of the 1st century B.C. (?) in Latin and in neo-Punic records the erection of a statue to Himilkat, who had carried out a decree of the local senatus for the erection of a temple to a goddess (described in the Punic version as domino dea—possibly Tanit herself) by his son Himilkat (T. Mommsen in Corp. inscr. lat. x. 7513, 7514). The Phoenician tombs consist of a chamber cut in the rock, measuring about 14 ft. square and 8 ft. high, and approached by a staircase; some of these have been converted into dwellings in modern times. Many of the curious sculptured stelae found in these tombs are now in the museum of Cagliari. On many of them the goddess Tanit is represented, often in a form resembling Isis, which gave rise to the unfounded belief of the Egyptian origin of Sulci. The Roman tombs, on the other hand, are simply trenches excavated in the rock.
There are also several catacombs: a group still exists under the church, in which was discovered the body of the martyr St Antiochus, from whom the modern town takes its name. The church is cruciform, with heavy pillars between nave and aisles, and a dome over the crossing: it belongs to the Byzantine period, and contains an inscription of Torcotorius, protospatarius and Salusius, ἄρχων, dating from the 10th century A.D. (A. Taramelli in Archivio storico sardo, 1907, 83 sqq.). Others farther south-west were Jewish; they have inscriptions in red painted on the plaster with which they are lined, and the seven branched candlestick occurs several times. The fort which occupies the highest point—no doubt the acropolis of the Punic period—is quite modern. The long, low isthmus which, with the help of bridges, connects the island with the mainland, is very likely in part or entirely of artificial origin; but neither it nor the bridges show any definite traces of Roman date. On either side of it ships could find shelter then as nowadays.
The origin of Sulci is attributed by Pausanias to the Carthaginians, and the Punic antiquities found there go to indicate the correctness of his account. It is mentioned in the account of the First Punic War as the place at which the Carthaginian admiral Hannibal took refuge after his defeat by C. Sulpicius, but was crucified. In 46 B.C. the city was severely punished by Caesar for the assistance given to Pompey’s admiral Nasidius. Under the empire it was one of the most flourishing cities of Sardinia. It was attacked by the Vandals and Saracens, but ceased to exist before the 13th century. Previously to this it had been one of the four episcopal sees into which Sardinia was divided. A castle in the low ground, attributed to the index Torcotorius, to the south of the modern town, was destroyed in modern times.
See A. Taramelli in Notizie degli scavi (1906), 135; (1908), 142; 192. (T. As.)
SULEIMAN I.[1] the “Magnificent” (1494–1566), sultan of Turkey, succeeded his father Selim I. in 1520. His birth coincided with the opening year of the 10th century of Mussulman chronology (A.H. 900), the most glorious period in the history of Islam. Eventful as the age was both in Europe, where the Renaissance was in full growth, and in India, where the splendour of the emperor Akbar’s reign exceeded alike that of his predecessors and his successors, Suleiman’s conquests overshadowed all these. It is noteworthy that though in Turkey he is distinguished only as the law-giver (kanuni), in European history he is known by such titles as the Magnificent. He was the most fortunate of the sultans. He had no rival worthy of the name. From his father he inherited a well-organized country, a disciplined army and a full treasury. He united in his person the best qualities of his predecessors, and possessed the gift of taking full advantage of the talents of the able generals, admirals and viziers who illustrated his reign. If his campaigns were not always so wisely and prudently planned as those of some of his predecessors, they were in the main eminently fortunate, and resulted in adding to his dominions Belgrade, Budapest, Temesvar, Rhodes, Tabriz, Bagdad, Nakshivan and Rivan, Aden and Algiers, and in his days Turkey attained the culminating point of her glory.
The alliance concluded by him with France reveals him at once as rising superior to the narrow prejudices of his race and faith, which rejected with scorn any union with the unbeliever, and as gifted with sufficient political insight to appreciate the advantage of combining with Francis I. against Charles V. His Persian campaign was doubtless an error, but was due in part to a desire to find occupation, distant if possible, for his janissaries, who were always prone to turbulence while inactive at the capital. He was perhaps wanting in firmness of character, and the undue influence exercised over him by unscrupulous ministers, or by the seductions of fairer but no less ambitious votaries of statecraft, led him to make concessions which tarnished the glory of his reign, and were followed by baneful results for the welfare of his empire. It is from Suleiman’s time that historians date the rise of that occult influence of the harem which has so often thwarted the best efforts of Turkey’s most enlightened statesmen.
Suleiman's claims to renown as a legislator rest mainly on his organization of the Ulema, or clerical class, in its hierarchical order from the Sheikh-ul-Islam downwards. He reformed and improved the administration of the country both civil and military, inaugurated a new and improved system for the feudal tenures of limitary fiefs, and his amelioration of the lot of his Christian subjects is not his least title to fame. He was also not unknown to fame as a poet, under the pseudonym of “Muhibbr” (see Hammer-Purgstall, Gesch. d. Osman. Reichs, ii. 331; and further Turkey: History).
Suleiman died on the 5th of September 1566, at the age of 72, while conducting the siege of Szigetvār.
SULEIMAN II. (1641–1691), sultan of Turkey, was a son of Sultan Ibrahim, and succeeded his brother Mahommed IV. in 1687. Forty-six years of enforced retirement had qualified him for the cloister rather than for the throne, and his first feeling when notified of his accession was one of terror for his brother’s vengeance. Nor were the circumstances following on his elevation to the throne of a nature to reassure him, as one of the most violent of the revolts of the janissaries ended in the murder of the grand vizier and the brutal mutilation of his family, with general massacre and pillage throughout Constantinople. The war with Austria was for Turkey a succession of disasters. At this time, fortunately for the Ottoman Empire, a third great kuprili (Mustafa) arose and re-established order in the sorely-tried state (see Kuprili). In the reforms which followed, whereby the situation of the Christian subjects of the Porte was greatly improved, Suleiman is at least to be given the credit of having allowed Mustafa Kuprili a free hand. With an improved administration Turkey’s fortunes in the war began to revive, and the reconquest of Belgrade late in 1690 was the last important event of the reign, which ended in 1691 by Suleiman’s death. (See also Turkey: History.)
SULEIMANIEH, or Suleimania, the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in Asiatic Turkey, in the vilayet of Mosul, situated on a treeless plain in the Kurdistan Mountains, in the region known as Shehrizor, some 40 or 50 m. from the Persian frontier, at an elevation of 2895 ft. It is a military station, and was founded towards the close of the 11th century. The estimated population is about 12,000, of whom 11,000 are Kurds, and the majority of the remaining 1000 Jews.
SULIMAN HILLS, a mountain system on the Dera Ismail Khan border of the north-west frontier of India. From the Gomal river southward commences the true Suliman system, presenting an impenetrable barrier between the plains of the Indus and Afghanistan. The Suliman Mountains finally merge into the hills of Baluchistan, which are inhabited by the Marri and Bugti tribes. The chief mass of the range is known as
- ↑ Suleiman, eldest son of Bayazid I., who maintained himself as sultan at Adrianople from 1402 to 1410, is not reckoned as legitimate by the Ottoman historiographers, who reckon Suleiman the Magnificent as the first of the name. By others, however, the latter is sometimes styled Suleiman II.
