From: Tore Gannholm
Message: 15877
Date: 2002-10-02
>Erland Hjärne has dealt with this in his doctoral thesis
> >
>> Pliny is not talking about whole rivers but about
>> their emptying into the
>> "Ocean". Since I didn't get any kind of coherent
>> answer to my suggestion
>> that Pliny's list is a mariner's list,
>
>******GK: I suggest you read Pliny at 37,30ff of the
>NH esp. at 37,45. There you will find the story of a
>gentleman (still living when Pliny was writing) who
>was sent by one of Nero's bureaucrats to explore the
>northern portion of the Amber Road. He did so, all the
>way to the Baltic, whose shores he explored, bringing
>back much of the valuable stuff. From Pannonian
>Carnuntum (a distance of nearly 900 kilometers). So
>forget your mariner's list and your Swedish river.
>Here's a link to a map:
>http://www.ancientroute.com/Amberoad.htm
>Click on map 5. Notice what river is crossed before
>the Vistula. This may be another explanation as to why
>"Guthalus" appears before Vistula in Pliny's list. The
>name quickly disappears, to be replaced by three names
>in Ptolemy (the latest interpretation by K. Goldmann
>is that these three names refer to the three mouths of
>the old Oder), one of which eventually won out as the
>main name of the river.*****
>