including Antourenein noir, Balsamina, Candive, Entournerein, Hignin noir, Marsanne noir, Schiras, Sirac, Syra, Syrac, Serine, and Sereine. Legends of Syrah's origins often connect it with the city of Shiraz in Iran. The former capital of the Persian Empire produced the well-known Shirazi wine and legends claim the original grape was later brought to the Rhône. At least two significantly different versions of the myth are reported, giving different accounts of how the variety is supposed to have travelled, differing up to 1,800 years in dating the event. In one version, the Phocaeans could have brought Syrah/Shiraz to their colony around Marseilles, then known as Massilia, which was founded around 600 BC by the Greeks. The grape would then later have spread to the northern Rhône, which was never colonized by the Phocaeans. No documentary evidence exists to back up this legend, and it also requires the variety to later vanish from the Marseilles region without leaving any trace. The legend connecting Syrah with the city of Shiraz in Iran may, however, be of French origin. James Busby wrote in his Journal of a recent visit to the principal vineyards of Spain and France an excerpt from the 1826 book Œnologie Française; "according to the tradition of the neighbourhood, the plant [Scyras] was originally brought from Shiraz in Persia, by one of the hermits of the mountain" called Gaspare de Stérimberg. Another legend of the grape variety's origin, based on the name Syrah, is that it was brought from Syracuse by the legions of Roman Emperor Probus sometime after AD 280. This legend also lacks documentary evidence and is inconsistent with ampelographic findings. Another proposed etymology links it with the Proto-Celtic word *serra, "billhook," presumably because the billhook was used in pruning. The name "Shiraz" has been used primarily in Australia in modern times. The name "Scyras" was used to describe the grape in the earliest Australian documents, and "Shiraz" may have come about through the "strinization" of the original word - a process of changing vowels as part of Australian slang - as speculated among others by Jancis Robinson) However, while the names "Shiraz" and "Hermitage" gradually replaced "Scyras" in Australia from the mid-19th century, the spelling "Shiraz" has also been documented in British sources back to at least the 1830s. Rise to fame The wines that made Syrah famous were those from Hermitage, the hill above the town Tain-l'Hermitage