Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis
Goodwin, Ed.

XX. EUPHRATES.

EUPHRATES is a river of Parthia, washing the walls of Babylon, formerly called Medus from Medus the son of Artaxeres. He, in the heat of his lust, having ravished away and deflowered Roxane, and finding he was sought after by the king, in order to be brought to punishment, threw himself into the river Xaranda, which from thenceforward was called by his name Medus. Afterwards it was called Euphrates upon this occasion.

Euphrates the son of Arandacus, finding his son Axurta abed with his mother, and thinking him to be some one of the citizens, provoked by his jealousy, drew his sword and nailed him to the bed. But perceiving himself the author of what could not be recalled, he flung himself for grief into the river Medus, which from that time forward was called by his name Euphrates.

In this river grows a stone called aetites, which midwives applying to the navels of women that are in hard labor, it causes them to bring forth with little pain.

In the same river also there grows an herb which is called axalla, which signifies heat. This herb they that are troubled with quartan-agues apply to their breasts, and are presently delivered from the fit;—as Chrysermus writes in his Thirteenth Book of Rivers.

[p. 503] Near this river lies the mountain Drimylus, where grows a stone not unlike a sardonyx, worn by kings and princes upon their diadems, and greatly available against dimness of sight;–as Nicias Mallotes writes in his Book of Stones.