Arar is a river in Gallia Celtica, deriving the name from its being
mixed with the river Rhone. For it falls into the Rhone within the
country of the Allobroges. It was formerly called Brigulus, but
afterwards changed its name upon this occasion. Arar, as he was a
hunting, entering into the wood, and there finding his brother Celtiber
torn in pieces by the wild beasts, mortally wounded himself for
grief, and fell into the river Brigulus; which from that accident was
afterwards called by his own name Arar.
In this river there breeds a certain large fish, which by the natives
is called Clupaea. This fish during the increase of the moon is white;
but all the while the moon is in the wane, it is altogether black;
and when it grows over bulky, it is (as it were) stabbed by its own
fins. In the head of it is found a stone like a corn of salt, which,
being applied to the left parts of the body when the moon is in the
wane, cures quartan agues;—as Callisthenes the Sybarite tells us in the
Thirteenth Book of Gallic Relations, from whom Timagenes the Syrian
borrowed his argument.
Near to this river stands a mountain called Lugdunum, which changed its
name upon this occasion. When Momorus and Atepomarus were dethroned
by Seseroneus, in pursuance of the oracle’s command they designed to
build a city upon the top of the hill. But when they had laid the
foundations, great numbers of crows with their wings expanded covered
all the neighboring trees. Upon which Momorus, being a person well
skilled in augury, called the city Lugdunum. For _lugdon_ in their
language signifies a crow, and _dunum_[176] any spacious hill.—This
Clitophon reports, in his Thirteenth Book of the Building of Cities.