Orontes
The Orontes River, which separated Syria from Egypt in ancient times,
was a symbol of the Near East, as the Tiber was of Rome. The river flowed north
in Syria for 250 miles,
irrigating
farmland and sweeping notably through the Seleucid capital of Antioch (see
the city's
coinage
under Augustus). It emptied into the eastern Mediterranean, where a steady
stream of its inhabitants departed for Rome.
The colossal bronze original of
this small marble Roman copy of Tyche, the personification of fortune which the
city of Antioch adopted as its patron goddess, was created by Eutychides, a
pupil of Lysippus, in the early 3rd century BCE.
