in Ancient Geography, now the Elbe, which divided ancient Germany in the middle, and was the boundary of this country, so far as it was known to the Romans: all beyond they owned to be uncertain, no Roman except Drusus and Tiberius having penetrated so far as the Elbe. In the year of the building of the city 744, or about six years before Christ, Domitius Ahenobarbus, crossing the river with a few, merited the ornaments of a triumph; so glorious was it reckoned at Rome to have opened this passage. In the following age, however, the river that before occupied the middle of ancient Germany, became its boundary to the north, from the irruptions of the Sarmatae, who possessed themselves of the Transalpine Germany. The Elbe rises in the borders of Silaena east of the Rifenberg, runs through Bohemia, Mithia, Upper Saxony, Anhalt, Magdeburg, Brandenburg, Danneberg, Lauenburg, Hofstein, and after being twinned by many other rivers, and passing by Hamburg and Glückstadt, to both which places the river is navigable by large vessels, falls into the German or North sea.