ITALY - This word varied in sense from time to time. It first signified only the Southern (the Greek) part of the peninsula; when Rome rose to power it appropriated the name to cover also its own territory up to the Rubicon; and finally, before the time of Christ, it had come to bear the meaning which it has now. Its central position in the Mediterranean, the conformation of its coast, and the capabilities of its soil under proper cultivation, fitted it to be the home and centre of a numerous and powerful people. In the 1st cent. AD. there was constant communication between the capital Rome and every part of the Empire, by well-recognized routes. Among the routes to the E., which mainly concern the NT student, was that from Rome along the W. coast of Italy to Campania, where it crossed the country and eventually reached Brundisium. From the harbour there the traveller either sailed across the Adriatic to Dyrrhachium, and went by the Egnatian road to Thessalonica and beyond, or sailed across to the Gulf of Corinth, trans-shipped from Lechaeum to Cenchreae (q.v.), and from there sailed to Ephesus or Antioch or Alexandria, as he desired. A good account of the opposite journey is in Ac 27-28. The Jews poured into Italy, especially to Rome, and had been familiar to the people of Italy as far north as Rome long before Christianity arrived. [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - A.So.?E.G.K.]