River
Orontem Flumen
Nahr el-Asi (Barrington)
Listen to the story
Orontem Flumen marks the river Orontes, known today in Arabic as Nahr el-Asi, but on the map it works as a road station: just a name with no picture, standing where the road crossed the water. A list of places compiled in Ravenna calls the same spot simply Ponte, the bridge. Twelve Roman miles separate it from Apamea, and twenty-one from Raphanis, a figure that seems too short, so it was perhaps thirty-one, or a station has dropped out. In antiquity the river also went by the names Axios, Drakon, Ophites and Typhon.