Syrtis
（
Σύρτις) and
Syrtes. The two great
gulfs in the eastern half of the northern coast of Africa. The name is derived by the ancients
from
σύρω, “to draw” or “to
suck,” but is possibly cognate with the Arabic
sert,
“a desert,” a term at present applied to the whole coast as bordering upon
the Great Desert. Both gulfs were proverbially dangerous, the Greater Syrtis from its
sandbanks and quicksands, and its unbroken exposure to the north winds, the Less from its
shelving rocky shores, its exposure to the northeast winds, and the consequent variableness of
the tides in it.
1.
Syrtis Maior (
ἡ μεγάλη Σύρτις,
Gulf of Sidra), the easternmost of the two, a wide and deep gulf on the shores of Tripolitana
and Cyrenaïca, exactly opposite to the Ionic Sea. The Great Desert comes down close
to its shores, forming a sandy coast, called by the ancients
Syrtĭca Regio. The terror of being driven on shore in it is
referred to in the narrative of St. Paul's voyage to Italy (Acts, xxvii. 17,
“fearing lest they should fall into the Syrtis”); and the dangers of a
march through the loose sand on its shores, sometimes of a burning heat, and sometimes
saturated with sea-water, were scarcely less formidable.
2.
Syrtis Minor (
ἡ μικρὰ Σύρτις, Gulf
of Khabs) lies in the southwestern angle of the great bend formed by the northern coast of
Africa as it drops down to the south from the neighbourhood of Carthage, and then bears again
to the east; in other words, in the angle between the eastern coast of Zeugitana and Byzacena
(Tunis) and the northern coast of Tripolitana (Tripoli). In its mouth, near the northern
extremity, lie the islands of Cercina and Cercinitis. In Herodotus, the word Syrtis occurs in
a few passages, without any distinction between the Greater and the Less. It seems most
probable that he means to denote by this term the Greater Syrtis, and that he included the
Less in the lake Tritonis.
