GE´NUSUS
GE´NUSUS (Vib. Seq. p. 10; Pent. Tab.: GENESIS, Geog. Rav.), a river of Illyricum, upon the lines of which Appius Claudius had his camp when he was employed against Gentius, at the same time that the consul Aemilius was carrying on the war against Perseus in Macedonia, B.C. 168. (Liv 44.30.) Caesar (
B.C. 75, 76;
Lucan 5.462), while attempting to effect a junction with the division of Calvinus, on the frontiers of Epirus and Thessaly, crossed this river.
It is the river now called
Tjerma, or
Skumnbi. The latter is obviously a corruption of Seampis, at or near
Elbasán. The branch of the Genusus, upon which that town is situated, may have been named Scampis as well as the town, and by a common kind of change may have superseded the name. of Genusus as that of the entire course of the stream below the junction. (Leake,
Trav. in North. Greece, vol. iii. p. 280.)
[
E.B.J]
