Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/209

Chap. 5.] rivers are the Tecum and the Vernodubrum The towns are Illiberis, the scanty remains of what was formerly a great city, and Ruscino , a town with Latian rights. We then come to the river Atax, which flows from the Pyrenees, and passes through the Rubrensian Lake , the town of Narbo Martius, a colony of the tenth legion, twelve miles distant from the sea, and the rivers Arauris and Liria. The towns are otherwise but few in number, in consequence of the numerous lakes which skirt the sea-shore. We have Agatha, formerly belonging to the Massilians, and the district of the Volcæ Tectosages , and there is the spot where Rhoda , a Rhodian colony, formerly stood, from which the river takes its name of Rhodanus ; a stream by far the most fertilizing of any in either of the Gallias. Descending from the Alps and rushing through lake Lemanus, it carries along with it the sluggish Arar , as well as the torrents of the Isara and the Druentia , no less rapid than itself. Its two smaller mouths are called Libica, one being the Spanish, and the