TILAVEMPTUS
TILAVEMPTUS (
Τιλαούεμπτος:
Tagliarmento), a river of Venetia, which has its sources in the Alps, above 80 miles from the sea, and after traversing the broad plain of the
Frioul, falls into the Adriatic sea between Aquileia and Concordia. (
Plin. Nat. 3.18. s. 22;
Ptol. 3.1.26.)
It is the most considerable river in this part of Italy, and, like all the neighbouring rivers, is subject to be swollen by floods and winter rains, so that it leaves a broad bed of shingle, great part of which is dry at ordinary seasons.
The name is found in Pliny and Ptolemy; and it is doubtless the same river which is described by Strabo, though without mentioning its name, as separating the territory of Aquileia from the province of Venetia, and which he says was navigable for 1200 stadia from its mouth. (
Strab. v. p.214.)
This last statement is indeed a great exaggeration; but the valley of the
Tagliamento is one of the natural openings of this part of the Alps, and was followed by the line of a Roman road, which proceeded from Aquileia by Julium Carnicum (
Zuglio) over the pass of the
Monte di Sta Croce into the valley of the
Gail. [
ALPES p. 110.]
Pliny speaks (
l.c.) of a “Tilaventum majus minusque,” but it is impossible to say what river he meant to designate under the latter appellation.
The name is written in the Tabula “Tiliabinte,” while it assumes very nearly its modern form in the Geographer of Ravenna. (Taliamentum, Geogr. Rav. 4.36.)
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E.H.B]
