River
Fluvius Bagamada
Oued Medjerda
Listen to the story
The Oued Medjerda in Tunisia is the ancient river Bagrada, the longest river in north-eastern Africa, which flowed slowly past Utica into the sea. The Tabula shows no river at all: a copyist evidently forgot to draw its course, so only the name survives, oddly placed in open water beyond the mouth. Even that has partly faded. The first letters seem to read Bag and the last da, while the middle can no longer be made out. The Roman writer Pliny tells how the army of the general Regulus killed a serpent a hundred and twenty feet long near its banks.