PACTOLUS (anc. geog.), a river of Lydia, called Chrysorrhoas, from its rolling down golden sand, according to Herodotus, Plutarch, Pliny, and Strabo; rising in mount Tmolus, (Strabo). From this river Cræsus is thought to have had all his riches. In Strabo's time it ceased to roll down any. It ran thro' Sardes; after which it fell into the Hermus, and both together into the Ægean Sea at Phocæa in Ionia. A river celebrated by Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Lycophon, Horace, Apollonius.