River
Fluvius Liger
Loire
Listen to the story
The map traces the Loire as a long river and labels it Fluvius Liger twice, once at its mouth and once at its source, but the copyist slipped and wrote Riger both times. At the source a second hand, probably much later, noticed the error and set a capital L above the R, a letter that stands out even more clearly under modern spectral imaging. At the mouth the mistake was left alone. Close by, the same kind of unfamiliar script seems to complete the tribal name of the Nitiobriges and add a picture at Langres. The Greek geographer Strabo wrongly believed the river ran parallel to the Garonne.