Thessaloni´ca, now called Salonichi, is still a city of about sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, situated on the present gulf of Salonichi, which was formerly called Sinus Thermaicus, at the mouth of the River Echedorus. It was the residence of a praeses, the principal city of the second part of Macedonia, and was by later writers even styled metropolis. Under the Romans it became great, populous, and wealthy. It had its name from Thessalonice, wife of Cassander, who built the city on the site of the ancient Thermae, after which town the Sinus Thermaicus was called. Thessalonica was 267 Roman miles east of Apollonia and Dyrrachium, 66 miles from Amphipolis, 89 from Philippi, 433 west from Byzantium, and 150 south of Sophia. A great number of Jews were living at Thessalonica in the time of the apostle Paul, and also many Christian converts, most of whom seem to have been either Jews by birth or proselytes before they embraced Christianity by the preaching of Paul. Jews are still very numerous in this town, and possess much influence there. They are unusually exclusive, keeping aloof from strangers. The apostolical history of the place is given in the preceding article. The present town stands on the acclivity of a steep hill, rising at the northeastern extremity of the bay. It presents an imposing appearance from the sea, with which the interior by no means corresponds. The principal antiquities are the propylaea of the hippodrome, the rotunda, and the triumphal arches of Augustus and Constantine.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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