River
Fl. Lathon
Bu Shatin (Barrington)
Listen to the story
The river Lathon is drawn on the Tabula but left without a name, even though there was ample room to write one. It is identified with the Bu Shatin near Benghazi in Libya. The map lets it flow into the Greater Syrtis, or rather into Lake Triton, drawn as part of that gulf, following the tradition of Cyrene that placed the river near Berenice. The Roman writer Pliny sets it just outside that city, beside a sacred grove where the Gardens of the Hesperides were said to lie, and the poet Lucan calls it the silent river. Later medieval world maps move it further west and call it the river of oblivion.