SI´CINOS
SI´CINOS (
Σίκινος: Eth.
Σικινίτης:
Sikino), a small island in the Aegaean sea, one of the Sporades, lying between Pholegandros and Ios, and containing a town of the same name. (
Scylax, p. 19;
Strab. x. p.484;
Ptol. 3.15.31.)
It is said to have been originally called Oenoë from its cultivation of the vine, but to have been named Sicinos after a son of Thoas and Oenoë. (
Steph. B. sub voce Apollon. 1.623; Schol.
ad loc.; Plin. Nat. 4.12. s. 23; Etym. M. p. 712. 49.) Wine is still the chief production of the island.
It was probably colonised by Ionians. Like most of the other Grecian islands, it submitted to Xerxes (
Hdt. 8.4), but it afterwards formed part of the Athenian maritime empire.
There are some remains of the ancient city situated upon a lofty and rugged mountain, on whose summit stands the church of
S. Marina. There is also still extant an ancient temple of the Pythian Apollo, now converted into the church
Episkopí (
ἡ Ἐπισκοπή).
It stands in a depression between the main range of mountairns, and the summit lying more to the left, upon which the ruins of the ancient city stand. We learn from an inscription found there by Ross that it was the temple of the Pythian Apollo. (Ross,
Reisen auf den Griech. Inseln, vol. ii. p. 149, seq.; Fiedler,
Reise, vol. ii. p. 151, seq.)
