River
Fl. Silarus
Sele
Listen to the story
The Silarus is the river Sele in southern Italy, which the Greek geographer Strabo and the Roman writer Pliny named as the boundary between Campania and Lucania. The map draws its winding course from the mountains to the Gulf of Paestum but gives it no label; its identity comes from the road station beside the crossing. The copyist of around 1200 first joined the neighbouring Sarno to it as a side arm, then scraped away the link and left two separate rivers. Strabo also told of a marvel: the water was drinkable, yet plants thrown in turned to stone, keeping their colour and shape, a result of the lime it carries.