In the 9th century BCE, the ancient Assyrians referred to the river as Arantu, and the nearby Egyptians called it Araunti. The etymology of the name is unknown, yet some sources indicate that it might be derived from Arnt which means "lioness" in Syriac languages; others called it Alimas, a "water goddess" in Aramaic. However, Arantu gradually became "Orontes" in Greek. In the Greek epic poem Dionysiaca, the river is said to have been named after Orontes, an Indian military leader who killed himself and fell into the river after losing to Dionysus in single combat. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, the river was originally named Typhon, because it was said that Zeus had struck the dragon Typhon down from the sky with thunder, and the river had formed where Typhon's body had fallen; however, the river was later renamed Orontes when a man named Orontes built a bridge on it. In contrast, Macedonian settlers in Apamea named it the Axius, after a Macedonian river god. The Arabic name العاصي is derived from the ancient Axius. The word coincidentally means "insubordinate" in Arabic, which folk etymology ascribes to the fact that the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region. The part of the river flowing from Lake Homs to Homs is known as al-Mimas, after the sanctuary of Deir Mimas situated there in honor of Saint Mamas.
Course
The Orontes rises in the springs near Labweh in Lebanon on the east side of the Beqaa Valley between Mount Lebanon on the west and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains on the east, very near the source of the southward-flowing Litani, and runs north, falling through a gorge to leave the valley. The Ain ez Zarqa is one such major spring. Other major springs are Al Ghab, Al Rouj, and Al-Azraq. Leaving this gorge, it expands into the Lake of Homs in Syria and through the city of Homs. Below is the district of Hamah, and the ancient site of Larissa. This is where the river enters the Ghab plain. Further downstream, on the eastern edge of the Ghab, is located the ancient city of Apamea. To the west is the Coastal Mountain Range. This section ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river turns west into the plain of Antioch in Turkey. , Hatay Two major tributaries, the southward-flowing Afrin River on the west and the Karasu on the east, join the Orontes through the former Lake Amik via an artificial channel. Passing north of Antakya, the Orontes dives southwest into a gorge, and falls in to the sea just south of Samandağ, after a total course of.
French writer Maurice Barrès purportedly transcribed, in Un jardin sur l'Oronte, a story which an Irish archaeologist had translated for him from a manuscript one evening in June 1914, at a café in Hama by the Orontes.
