Both Strabo and Pliny tell us that it was originally called Clanis, a name which appears to have been common to many Italian rivers ; the former writer erroneously assigns its sources to the country of the Vestini; an opinion which is adopted also by Lucan. The surrounding area was devastated by Hannibal during his invasion in response to the locals' having burnt the bridges over the river. In 238 BC, the adjacent city ofFregella was the site of a crushed rebellion against Roman rule. The Liris is noticed by several of the Roman poets, as a very gentle and tranquil stream, a character which it well deserves in the lower part of its course, where it was described by a nineteenth century traveller as a wide and noble river, winding under the shadow of poplars through a lovely vale, and then gliding gently towards the sea. At the mouth of the Liris near Minturnae, was an extensive sacred grove consecrated to Marica, a nymph or local divinity, who was represented by a tradition, adopted by Virgil, as mother ofLatinus, while others identified her with Circe. Her grove and temple were not only objects of great veneration to the people of the neighboring town of Minturnae, but appear to have enjoyed considerable celebrity with the Romans themselves. Immediately adjoining its mouth was an extensive marsh, formed probably by the stagnation of the river itself, and celebrated in history in connection with the adventures of Gaius Marius. About upstream from its mouth, the river passes what used to be Lake Fucino, separated from the lake basin by the mountain ridge of Monte Salviano. The Roman emperorClaudius had a tunnel dug through the ridge in an attempt to drain the lake, which had no natural outlet, to the Liri. The later emperor Hadrian tried to improve the tunnel but, after the fall of the empire, tunnel maintenance was not maintained and it was blocked by silt and debris, allowing the lake to refill. A new tunnel was completed in the 1860s, and the basin of the former lake still drains to the Liri via that tunnel, through the ridge near the town of Avezzano. During the Italian Campaign of the Second World War, the German defenses of the Gustav Line followed the Liri valley.
