GALESUS, OR GALESUS

GALESUS, OR GALESUS, in Ancient Geography, a small river of Calabria, falling into the gulf of Tarentum, a few miles W. of that city. It flowed through rich pasture-lands browsed by the sheep which produced the famous Tarentine wool. The value of this product was very great, and that none of it might be lost, the sheep were sent to feed completely enveloped in skins. Hence the force of Horace's allusion to the

Daleo pellitis ovibus Galasi
Flumen.

The stream is often mentioned by the Roman poets, and has thus acquired a wider fame than many Italian rivers ten times its size. Indeed so small was the Galesus, that it has not been identified with certainty. Swinburne, who is probably the best authority on the subject, supposes that the Cervaro is the real Galesus; and his supposition tallies better with the descriptions of Livy and Polybius than any other that has been advanced. The local antiquaries have tried, though not very successfully, to identify the Galesus with a small stream called Le Citrezze, which falls into the Mare Piccolo, or great port of Tarentum, on its northern side.