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]