Rhoda (Hastings' Dictionary)

^\\e name means ' Rose.' ^\^len St. Peter was miraculously released from prison he went to the house of Mary the mother of Mark. A damsel (Foi5/<rK7j) of the name of Rlioda came to the door, but opened not the gate for gladness, and ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. • _L\ike saw or heard the ship (a Roman imperial vessel) called oy itfl Latin name para,ieino G*'ininig or VatitoritniH (compare the inKcrijitioii CIL iii. No. 3, TMvit parasemo Jnop/iarid, i.e.

whose Bi);n wm the Pharian Isis) in the Greek translation wctpcLffitj^ i^,6tr)uv^t< (where the dative represents the I^Atin •blat. abaci. , aa in etnunUe Cicerone, vrirm Knupnu); and the formula remains in his text to puzzle those commentators who study only literary Oreek and neglect technical language. She was accused of bein<' mad, but persisted in hei statement (Ac 12"-"). Nothing further is known of her.

The name is fairly common both in litera- ture and inscriptions, and was often given to slave girls. A. C. Headlam. RHODES f PiJos) ranks among the most brilliant of the many brUliant cities of ancient Greece. The city was foimded in B.C. 408, at the extreme north- eastern point of the island of Rhodes, when the three ancient cities, Lindus, Camii;us, and lalysus, were concentrated in the new foundation. It enjoyed an admirable situation and a splendid climate.

The commercial aptitude of the popula- tion knew how to use its advantages by wise laws and just dealings with their competitors and allies in the trade of the eastern Mediterranean. Rhodes was at its highest pitch of power in the 2nd cent. B.C., having been made mistress of great part of Caria and Lycia in the settlement of 189, after the defeat and expulsion from Asia Minor of Antiochus and the Seleucid power. The city was, however, too powerful to suit the Roman policy. In B.C.

166 the Carian and Lycian cities were declared inde- pendent by Rome ; and another blow was struck at Rhodian commercial supremacy by making Delos a free port in the same year. The result of these disasters is to be observed in the diminu- tion and alteration of Rhodian coinage about that time. But Rhodes continued to maintain its commerce. It was relieved of Delian conipetition by the great massacre of the Romans in Delos by Mithridates in B.C.

87; and by continuing loyal to Rome in that critical time, when almost every other Greek citj' joined Mithridates, it recovered favour and was permitted to regain part of its Carian possessions. In the Roman civil wars Rhodes from B.C. 47 to 43 supported the cause of Cajsar, and suffered severely in consequence. C.

Cassiiis captured the city in 43, and exacted 4500 talents from its people ; and another Cassius in 42 burned all the Rhodian ships except thirty, which he manned with crews of his own and took away. Rhodes henceforth was a city devoid of real power ; and it sank practically into a common provincial town of the Roman empire, though it ranked as a free city under the early emperors (except for a short time under Claudius, who took away its freedom and afterwards restored it again).

Yet Strabo mentions (p. 652) that it was the most splendid city known to him in respect of harbours, streets, walls, and other equipment. Such was its condition in the time of St. Paul. Shortly afterwards Vespasian made it a part of the pro- vince Lycia. Rhodes is mentioned in the NT only as a point where St. Paul touched on his voyage from Troas to Cnesarea, Ac 21'.

The route along the coast between the ports of the province Asia on the one side and those of Syria or Egypt on the other, was probably the most frequented seaway in the whole of the Mediterranean. The vo}"age was marked by a number of stopping points,— Cos, Patara, etc., — where the ordinary ships engaged in the trade called as a matter of course ; and these are men- tioned in Ac 20 and 21, with the exception of Myua (which is given in the Western Text only).

Rhodes was one of them ; and the ship on which St. Paul and the whole body of delegates wera sailing touched there between Cos and Patara. This is all in the customary form. Hundreds of ships did the same every year. An excellent illustration is supplied by the voyage of Herod, about B.C. 14, from Palestine by Rhodes, Cos, Chios, and Mityhne, to Byzantium and Sinops (see Jos. Ant. xvi. ii. 2).

Rhodes was also, beyond all doubt, one of the ports of call on the voyage from Alexandria to RHODES EIBLAH 26'J Putooli or to Ostia. It is, indeed, not mentioned in the voj-agea of that class described under MVRA, but none of those narratives gives a list of harbours, and we may assume with confidence ♦.hat in each case Rhodes was a port where the eiiip called (unless in exceptional circumstances). That is proved by the voyage of Vespasian from Alexandria to Rome in A.d.

70, which was by way of the Lycian coast and Rliodes, as is seen by comparinjj Dion Cassius, IxNi. 8, vrith Zonaras, xi. 17, and Jos. BJ VII. ii. 1. The voyage of Herod the Great in B.C. 40 from Alexandria to Rome by Pamphylia and Rhodes is also a good illustration.

Herod evidently passed east and north of Cyprus, like the ship in Ac 27'" ; but it was the stormy season, and the over-sea voyage, common in the summer season, could not then be risked : see Myka, where these two voyages may be added to the examples quoted. Rhodes is also mentioned in 1 Mac 15^ among the States to which the Romans sent letters on behalf of the Jews about B.C. 138 (see Phaseli.s, LyCIA, Delos, etc.)

Only self-governing free States were thus addressed ; and Rhodes, as almost the greatest maritime State of the eastern Medi- terranean, was of course included. The ships carrying Jews from the west and from the .-Egean coasts and cities to and from Jerusalem, for the Passover, would all, as we have seen, call in ordinary course at Rhodes. Such ships are implied in Ac 18'*"^ 20^.

It may be taken as practically certain that in a great commercial centre like Rhodes there would be Jews resident ; but hardly any memorial of them has been preserved. In Ezk 27" the Septuagint reads 'Sons of the Rhodians were thy merchants'; where AV and RV have 'The men of Dedan were thy merchants' (•rafJickers, RV). There can be little doubt that the Septuagint text in this passage is a change made by translators in the 3rd cent. B.C.

, who had no knowledge of the desert carrier tribe Dedan, but were familiar with the Rhodians as the greatest merchants of their time in the Levant (see 1 >EDAN). In Gn 10^ and in 1 Ch 1', also, the Septuagint text has ■ Rhodians' ('PMioi) as the fourth of the sons of Javan ; but RV, following the Hebrew text, has Dodanim in the former place and Rodanim in the latter (AV Dodanim in lioth places).

Among the sons of Javan, Rhodes, which was inhabited by Greeks (though by Dorians, not loniana ; see Dodanim), would be quite suitable ; and the Sei>tuagint text is accepted by most modems in those two places. The island of Rhodes is abont43 miles long from N.E. to S.W. by 20 miles where the breadth is greatest ; its nearest point is about 12 miles from the mainland. The famous colnxsus was a statue of the sun-god, 105 feet in height, which stood at the harbour entrance.

It was erected to com- memorate the success of the Rhodians in with- standing the siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes in B.C. 2m ; but it fell during an earthquake in 224, and the fragments remained lying, sliown as a curiosity till A.D. 672, when the Arab ''cneral who conquered Rhodes is said to have sold them to a Jew of Emesa. The island was soon afterwards reconquered by the Byzantine arms, and remained in Christian hands for many centuries.

The most interesting and glorious period of Rhodian history in many respects began in 13KI, when the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem took the city from the Byzantine empire, and founded a State, including several of the neighbouring small islands and some towns on the mainland, especially llalicarnassus and Smyrna (the latter being taken in 1345, and held till 1403). The Knights of Rhodes were en- gaged in ceaseless warfare with the Turks. The • Joe Ant. xn. rlv. it.; BJ i. xiv. 8.

city, which was very strongly fortified by the Knights, was besieged unsuccessfully in 1440, 1444, and 1480; but at last, in 1522, the Knights sur- rendered on honourable terms to Sultan Suleiman, and retired to Crete, then to Sicily, and finally to Malta. The modern town of Rhodes is full of memorials of the time of the Knights, and con- tains hardlj' any apparent traces of its older history. Its harbours have been allowed to become choked with sand, and its trade is c|uite insignili- cant.

\V. M. Ramsay. RH0D0CU3 f PiSoKos).— A Jew who betrayed the secrets of his countrymen to Antiochus Eupatoi. He was detected and imprisoned, 2 Mac 13-'. RIBAI ('jn ; LXX in 2 S "Pti/Si, in 1 Ch B 'Vc^U, A'?iji3al, ^? 'PoiSeiaO.— The father of Ittai (1 Ch Ithai) the Bcnjamite, one of David's thirty heroes (2 S 23^=1 Ch IP').