Tanager

• a small river in Lucania, now Negro or Tangro, Verg. G. 3, 151.

TANAGER or TANAGRUS (Tanagro), a river of Lucania, a tributary of the Silarus. It rises in the mountains near Lago Negro, flows for about 30 miles in a NNE. direction, through a broad and level upland valley called the Valle di Diano, till near La Polla it sinks into the earth, and emerges again through a cavern at a place thence called La Pertusa. This peculiarity is mentioned by Pliny, who calls it fluvius in Atinate campo,w ithout mentioning its name (Plin. Nat. 2.103. s. 106, with Harduin‘s note): but this is known to us from Virgil, who notices it in connection with Mount Alburnus, which rises immediately to the W. of it, and the epithet siccusw hich he applies to it ( sicci ripa Tanagri) doubtless refers to this same peculiarity. (Verg. G. 3.151; Serv. ad loc.; Vib. Seq. p. 19.) There is no doubt, also, that in the Itinerary we should read Ad Tanagrumf or Ad Tanarum,a station which it places on the road from Salernum to Nerulum. (Itin. Ant. p. 109.) The same Itinerary gives a station Ad Calorem,a s the next on this line of route, which seems to show that the river was then, as now, called, in the upper part of its course Calor or Calore, while in the lower part it assumes the name of Tanagro or Negro. This part of the route, however, is very confused.

Now the Negro or Tanagro; a river of Lucania, rising in the Apennines, which, after flowing in a northeasterly direction, loses itself under the earth near Polla for a space of about two miles, and finally falls into the Silarus near Forum Popilii.