S A R 
SARCOCOLLA, in Botany. See Pen.ea. 
SARCODUM [from the Gr. fleshy], in allu¬ 
sion to the substance of the legume, is a genus of Loureiro’s, 
of the diadelphcus class. He says it agrees with lotus in 
its turgid, or full, legume, but differs in its ha!f-truncate 
calyx, with three teeth; flat, not converging, wings; ascend¬ 
ing standard ; and kidney-shaped seeds. The stem is shrub¬ 
by, climbing. Flowers rose-coloured, in simple terminal 
spikes. Leaves pinnate, of numerous woolly leaflets. 
SARCOEPLIPLOCELE [from the Gr. crapf, flesh; 
svLitXoov, the omentum; and a tumour;'], in Surgery, 
an omental hernia, together with a sarcocele. 
SARCOL1TE, in Mineralogy, a red variety of zeolite, 
crystallized in cubes, with each of the solid angles replaced 
by eight planes. 
SARCOLOGY, s. A discourse on the flesh, or the soft 
parts of the human body. 
Anatomy is divided into two principal parts; osteology 
and sarcology; the first of which treats of the bones and 
cartilages; the second of the flesh and soft parts. 
SARCO'MA, {rraoKuij.a., Gr.] A fleshy excrescence, 
or lump, growing in any part of the body. See Sur¬ 
gery. 
SARCOMPHALON [from the Gr. c-aof, flesh; and 
op.tpa.Xoi;, the navel;], a fleshy excrescence at the navel. 
SARCOMPHALUS, in Botany, so called by Browne, 
Hist, of Jam. 179, in allusion to the fleshy navel-like rim 
which crowns the germen. See Rhamnus. 
SARCO'PHAGOUS, adj. [trap! and <payu, Gr.] Flesh- 
eating; feeding on flesh. 
SARCO'PHAGUS, s. [Latin ; sarcophage, Fr. de o-ap£, 
crap/co?, Greek, chair, et <payo>, manger, parce qu'on pretend 
que ces tombeaux etoient faits d’une certaine pierre caustique, 
qui consumoit promptement les corps; ou plutot parce que 
les tombeaux devorent, pour ainsi dire, lescadavres humains 
qu’on y depose.” Morin. It is observable, that we had, 
nearly two centuries since, the word in its French form. 
“ Sarcophage, a grave, a sepulchre.”] A sort of stone 
coffin or grave, in which the ancients laid those bodies which 
were not to be burned.—I have observed the same device 
upon several sarcophagi, that have enclosed the ashes of 
men or boys, maids or matrons. Addison. 
The word, as derived from the Greek, literally signifies 
flesh-eater; because, at first, they used a sort of stones for 
the making of these tombs, which quickly consumed the 
bodies. The quarries from whence they dug them were near 
a city of Troas, named Assum. They had the faculty to 
waste away a body to nothing, save the teeth, in forty 
days. 
This stone resembled a reddish pumice-stone, and had a 
saltish taste; they also made vessels of it to cure the gout, 
into which they put their feet. 
SARCO'PHAGY, s. [<rap| and <pxyu, Gr.] The practice 
of eating flesh.—There was no sarcophagy before the flood ; 
and, without the eating of flesh, our fathers preserved them¬ 
selves unto longer lives than their posterity. Brown. 
SARCOPHYIA [from the Gr. craof, flesh ; and <j>vco, to 
grow ;], a sarcoma. 
SARCOTHLASMA, in Surgery, a bruise. 
SARCO'TICK, s. [from a-aoE, Gr. sarcotique, Fr.] A 
medicine which was supposed to fill up ulcers with new 
flesh; the same as incarnative. 
SARCULA'TION, s. [ sarculum, Lat.] The act of 
weeding ; plucking up weeds. Johnson. Unused. 
The sarculum was a sort of narrow and long hoe, with 
which they rooted up the weeds among plants growing 
irregularly. We have the same kind of instrument in use at 
this time in some places for hoeing between the plants of 
flax; but one way of sowing, in rows, at present, has pre¬ 
vented the necessity of having recourse to so inconvenient 
and troublesome an instrument in other cases. 
SARCULATURA, in our old Writers, weeding of corn ; 
whence una sarculatura was the tenant’s service of one 
day’s weeding for the lord. “ Tenet in bondagio, et debet 
unam sarculaturam, &c.” 
S A R 671 
SARD, a small town of the south-west of Hungary; 134 
miles south-south-east of Vienna, and 27 south-by-east of 
Keszthely. 
SARDA, in Ancient Geography, a large port of the 
Mediterranean, on the coast of Mauritania, between Triturn 
and Caesarea. Strabo. 
SARDA, in Natural History. See Cornelian. 
SARDA, in Ichthyology, a name by which some call 
the fish, more usually known by the name of pelamys, or 
pelamys sarda; a fish resembling a young tunny, but 
having larger and longer teeth, and no scales. 
SARDACHATES, the name of a species of agate, found 
frequently at this time on the shores of rivers in the East 
Indies, and seeming to contain an admixture of the matter 
of the common red cornelian. 
It is a very elegant and beautiful species, and is often 
found of a considerable size. It is of a pale, whitish ground, 
and has no veins or other variegations, except a multitude 
of minute spots, of a pale red, and of the matter of a red 
cornelian ; these are scattered very sparingly in some parts of 
the mass, but in others they are so clustered together, as to 
make small clouds of an elegant red. It is very hard, and 
is capable of an elegant polish. Our lapidaries do not much 
esteem it, but in some other places it is wrought into toys, 
which are much esteemed. 
SABDAN. See Zaardam. 
SARDAN APALUS, a king of Assyria, whose name is 
proverbial for effeminate luxury, lived in an age so remote 
from the period of authentic history, that the circumstances 
of his reign are only known from doubtful narrations. 
Chronologists differ much in the era to which they assign 
him, but Blair gives the date about 740 before Christ. He 
was probably a prince endowed with great riches and 
power, in proof of which it was inscribed on his tomb, that 
he built the cities of Tarsus and Anchiale in one day, 
which it is impossible to understand literally. He was 
reduced to the lowest rank by gross sensuality, and is said 
so far to have degraded himself as to have assumed a female 
habit, and frequently to take a place among his female con¬ 
cubines. Under such a character, the fall of the Assyrian 
monarchy could not be a matter of surprise. Public discon¬ 
tent was fomented by Arbaces, a Median satrap, and Belesis, 
a Babylonian priest, who brought a great army of revolters 
to overthrow the government. Sardanapalus, sensible of 
the dangers to which he was exposed, assembled all the 
troops upon which he could rely, and defeated the insur¬ 
gents in three different actions. Thinking himself perfectly 
secure, he resumed the dissolute course to which he had 
been habituated, and while he was preparing a great festival 
for his victorious army, Arbaces, reinforced by the Bactrians, 
fell upon them in the night, and forcing the camp, pursued 
the fugitives with great slaughter to the gates of Nineveh. In 
this famous place the king shut himself: the height and 
strength of its walls enabled him to hold out two years: but 
at length, an inundation of the Euphrates having made a 
large breach in the walls, Sardanapalus finding that all 
hopes of future defence must be abandoned, burnt himself, 
his treasures, his concubines, and his eunuchs. This event 
is supposed to have happened about the year B. C. 720, and 
in the 20th of his reign. TJniver. Hist. Blair's and 
Play fair's Chronol. 
SARDANUS, the name of a fish of the harengiform kind, 
caught in the Mediterranean, and common in the markets of 
Rome and Venice. Its body is broader than that of the 
pilchard, and its back green; and the line which runs along 
the belly is much less rough than in that fish. It is indeed 
easy to distinguish it from the pilchard, but not so easy to 
shew in what it differs from the common herring more than 
in size. It seems very probable, that it is no distinct species 
of fish; but that the herring, like the pilchard, is always 
smaller in the Mediterranean than the ocean. Willughby. 
SARDAR [Turkish], the title of an officer chosen from 
among the caias of the janizaries on some particular occa¬ 
sion ; such as to head a detachment sent to war, or on any 
other occasion. 
The 
