SUIDAS, Greek lexicographer. Nothing is known of him, except that he must have lived before Eustathius ( i2th-I3th century), who frequently quotes him. Under the heading "Adam" the author of the lexicon (which a prefatory note states to be "by Suidas") gives a brief chronology of the world, ending with the death of the emperor John Zimisces (975), and under "Con stantinople" his successors Basil and Constantine are mentioned. It would thus appear that Suidas lived in the latter part of the loth century. The lexicon of Suidas is arranged alphabetically with some slight deviations. It partakes of the nature of a dic tionary and encyclopaedia. It includes numerous quotations from ancient writers ; the scholiasts on Aristophanes, Homer, Sophocles and Thucydides are also much used. The work deals with scrip tural as well as pagan subjects, and doubtless the writer was a Christian. A prefatory note gives a list of earlier dictionaries. Although the work is uncritical, interpolated, and very unequal, it contains much information on ancient history and life.
Editio princeps, by Demetrius Chalcondyles (t499) ; later editions by L. Kiister (1705), T. Gaisford (1834), G. Bernhardy
and I. Bekker (1854) ; see A. Daub, De S. Biographicorum origine et fide (188o) and Studien zu den Biographika des S. (1882) ; and J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship (1906), p. 407.
(Su-cHow-Fu), a Chinese river port at the junc tion of the Minkiang and the Kin-sha-kiang, in south-west Szech wan. In the south of the province are favourable conditions for breeding the wax insect on the insect trees. The insects are taken at the end of April, travelling by night along the hillsides, to secure coolness and delay hatching, to the district of Kia-ting-fu, on the Minkiang, north of Sui-fu, where the insects are put on the trees, appear to contract a disease and secrete wax. The wax is dealt in at Sui-fu. The town receives medicinal herbs and extracts, musk, etc., from Tibet, and metals from Yunnan; it exports cot ton goods, chiefly to Yunnan. A recent estimate of the population gives a total of 125,000.