RHUBON
RHUBON,
RHUDON (
Ῥούβωνος ἐκβ.,
Ptol. 3.5.2;
Ῥουδῶνος ἐκβ., Marcian. Heracl.
Peripl. § 39, ed. Müller), a river of European Sarmatia which took its source in the Alani Montes and discharged itself into the Venedicus Sinus. Schafarik (
Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 497) has identified it with the
Düna, which, taking a direction generally W., falls into the
Gulf of Riga below
Fort Dünamunde, after a course of 655 miles.
This same ethnologist connects the mythic Eridanus, and the trees that wept amber, with the Rhudon of Marcian (Rhubon appears to be a corrupted form), which Sabinus, a commentator upon Virgil, A.D. 1544, calls Rhodanus.
The amber could be brought by land, or by water from the coasts where it was collected to the
Düna, and thence by boats conveyed to the Borysthenes and the coasts of the Euxine.
The name “Eri-danus,” closely connected with Rhodanus, is composed of the words “Rha” and “Don,” roots which, in several of the Indo-European languages, signify “water,” “river,” as for instance in “Rha,” the old name for the
Volga, and Danubius, Tanais, Danapris, Danastris, and the like.
[
E.B.J]
