adria Summary and Overview

(Acts 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.

more properly A'drias the Adriatic Sea. #Ac 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. [MELITA]

A'DRIA . Acts 27:27. The northern part of the Ionian Sea between Greece, Italy, and Sicily.

The gulf bounded on the E. by Dalmatia and Albania, and on the W. by Italy. It was often however understood in a wider sense, as by Paul's almost contemporary geographer, Ptolemy, namely, the Mare Superum, including the Ionian sea, between Sicily on the W., and Greece and Crete on the E., and Africa on the S., the "Syrtic basin" (Acts 27:17). So that the Melita of Acts 28 need not be looked for in the present Adriatic gulf, but may be identified with Malta. Adria, a town near the Po, gave its name. Malta marks the division between the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian (Mare Inferum) sea; the Corinthian isthmus divides the AEgean from the Adriatic.