ADRIA

(Aʹdri·a).

At Acts 27:27 reference is made to the “sea of Adria,” in which Paul spent fourteen turbulent days before being shipwrecked on the island of Malta. Strabo, a Greek geographer of the first century B.C.E., says this name is derived from the city of Atri, located at the mouth of the Po River on what is now called the Gulf of Venice. The present Italian city of Adria lies somewhat back from the coast. It appears that the name “Adria” came to apply to the waters in that vicinity and was progressively extended to include all the present Adriatic Sea, the Ionian Sea and those waters of the Mediterranean E of Sicily (and Malta) and W of Crete. So the name covered some waters that today are considered as outside the Adriatic Sea; but in Paul’s day the island of Malta could properly be said to be bounded by the “sea of Adria.”