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244 than to the vessels that are upon it, still it takes care to carry away no portion of its banks, and when it recedes, renders them additionally fertile. Its length from its source is 300 miles, to which we must add eighty-eight for its sinuosities; and it receives from the Apennines and Alps not only several navigable rivers, but immense lakes as well, which discharge themselves into its waters, thus conveying altogether as many as thirty streams into the Adriatic Sea.

Of these the best known are the following — flowing from the range of the Apennines, the Jactus, the Tanarus, the Trebia which passes Placentia, the Tarus, the Incia, the Gabellus, the Scultenna, and the Rhenus: from the chain of the Alps, the Stura , the Orgus, the two Duriæ, the Sessites, the Ticinus, the Lambrus, the Addua, the Ollius, and the Mincius. There is no river known to receive a larger increase than this in so short a space; so much so indeed that it is impelled onwards by this vast body of water, and, invading the land, forms deep channels in its course: hence it is that, although a portion of its stream is drawn off by rivers and canals between Ravenna and Altinum, for a space of 120 miles, still, at the spot where it discharges the vast body of its waters, it is said to form seven seas.

By the Augustan Canal the Padus is carried to Ravenna, at which place it is called the Padusa, having formerly borne the name of Messanicus. The nearest mouth to this spot