NAR
NAR (
ὁ Νάρ,
Nera), a considerable river of Central Italy, and one of the principal tributaries of the Tiber.
It rises in the lofty group of the Apennines known as the
Monti della Sibilla (the Mons Fiscellus of Pliny), on the confines of Umbria and Picenum, from whence it has a course of about 40 miles to its confluence with the Tiber, which it enters 5 miles above Ocriculum, after flowing under the walls of Interamna and Narnia. (Strab. v. pp. 227, 235;
Plin. Nat. 3.5. s. 9;
Lucan 1.475; Vib. Seq. p. 15.) About 5 miles above the former city, it receives the tributary stream of the VELINUS; a river as large as itself, and which brings down the accumulated waters of the Lacus Velini, with those of the valleys that open out at Reate. The Nar and Velinus together thus drain the whole western declivity of the Central Apennines through a space of above 60 miles. The Nar is remarkable for its white and sulphureous waters, which are alluded to by Ennius and Virgil as well as Pliny. (Ennius,
Ann. vii. Fr. 19;
Verg. A. 7.517;
Plin. Nat. 3.12. s. 17.)
It is singular that the last writer has confounded the Nar with the Velinus, and speaks of
the former as draining the Lacus Velini, into which it falls near Reate. Both Cicero and Tacitus, on the contrary, correctly represent the waters of the lake as carried off into the Nar, which is now effected by an artificial cut forming the celebrated
Cascade of the Velino, or
Falls of Terni. This channel was first opened by M‘. Curius, about B.C. 272, but there must always have been some natural outlet for the waters of the
Velino. (Plin.
l.c.; Cic. Att. 4.1. 5;
Tac, Ann. 1.79.) The Nar was reckoned in ancient times navigable for small vessels; and Tacitus speaks of Piso, the murderer of Germanicus, as embarking at Narnia, and descending from thence by the Nar and the Tiber to Rome. (
Tac. Ann. 3.9;
Strab. v. p.227.)
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E.H.B]
