River
Aretusa Flumen
Restan
Listen to the story
Aretusa Flumen labels a river, yet the place behind the name was a town and fortress in Syria, today Restan, where only inconspicuous ruins remain. The map gives it no picture at all, just the name on the road line. Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's successors, founded or restored the stronghold and named it after an old city in Macedonia. The Greek geographer Strabo counted its land among the nomadic Arabs, and under Augustus and Tiberius it was a small principality under Roman overlordship.