River
Fluvius Padus
Po
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Right at its source, beside the mountains where it rises, the map writes the name Fluvius Padus, the river Po, which then winds through Cisalpine Gaul towards the Adriatic. The copyist gave it thirty-two tributaries, two more than the thirty that ancient writers usually counted. Greek poets called it Eridanus, the river that brought amber, and Virgil hailed it as king of rivers. The Roman writer Pliny, quoting the Greek Metrodorus of Scepsis, derived its name from the pitch pines near its source, which the Gauls called padi, and added that the Ligurians named it Bodincus, meaning bottomless.