Adria
A'dria. More properly A'drias, the Adriatic Sea. Act_27:27. The word seems to have been derived
from the town of Adria, near the Po. In Paul's time it included the
whole sea between Greece and Italy, reaching south from Crete to Sicily. See
Melita.
Source:
Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Adria
ā´dri-a (Westcott-Hort: ὁ
Ἁδρίας, ho Hadrías
or ho Adrías): In Greek Adrias (Polybios i.2.4), Adriatike
Thalassa (Strabo iv.204), and Adriatikon Pelagos (Ptolemy iii.15.2),
and in Latin Adriaticum mare (Livy xl.57.7), Adrianum mare
(Cicero in Pisonem 38), Adriaticus sinus (Livy x.2.4), and Mare
superurn (Cicero ad Att. 9.5.1). The Adriatic Sea is a name derived
from the old Etruscan city Atria, situated near the mouth of the Po (Livy
v.33.7; Strabo v.214). At first the name Adria was only applied to the most
northern part of the sea. But after the development of the Syracusan colonies
on the Italian and Illyrian coasts the application of the term was gradually
extended southward, so as to reach Mons Garganus (the Abruzzi), and later the
Strait of Hydruntum (Ptolemy iii.1.1; Polybios vii.19.2). But finally the name
embraced the Ionian Sea as well, and we find it employed to denote the Gulf of
Tarentum (Servius Aen xi.540), the Sicilian Sea (Pausanias v. 25), and even the
waters between Crete and Malta (Orosius i.2.90). Procopius considers Malta as
lying at the western extremity of the Adriatic Sea (i.14). After leaving Crete
the vessel in which the apostle Paul was sailing under military escort was
“driven to and fro in the sea of Adria” fourteen days (Act_27:27) before it approached the shore of
Malta. We may compare this with the shipwreck of Josephus in “the middle of the
Adria” where he was picked up by a ship sailing from Cyrene to Puteoli
(Josephus, Vita, 3).
Source:
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Adria
(Act_27:27; R.V., “the sea of Adria”), the
Adriatic Sea, including in Paul's time the whole of the Mediterranean lying
between Crete and Sicily. It is the modern Gulf of Venice, the Mare Superum of
the Romans, as distinguished from the Mare Inferum or Tyrrhenian Sea.
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary