The myth of the Lethes, the river of forgetfulness

The myth of the Lethes is the origin of both the name and the story of the Festa do Esquecemento: the ancient belief that the river Limia was the river of forgetfulness, and that anyone who crossed it lost all memory of their homeland ^[1][3].

What the classical authors say

The historian Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo gathered the ancient references to the river, following Marcelo Macías, Father Flórez and Elixio Rivas ^[1][2]:

• Strabo calls it the Lethes and says others call it the Limaeus or Belion. Drawing on Posidonius, he tells how an expedition of Turduli and Celtici, after crossing the river, suffered a mutiny and the death of their leader, and the men were left scattered there, unable to remember why they had come: hence the name river of forgetfulness ^[1][2].
• Pomponius Mela lists the Limia among the rivers of the Grovii, "cui oblivionis cognomen est" ("whose surname is Oblivion") ^[1].
• Pliny calls it "Oblivionis antiquis dictus" (Natural History IV, 115), and the same idea recurs in Ptolemy, the Roman itineraries and the Ravenna Cosmography ^[1][2].
• Silius Italicus speaks of the river that, among the Grovii, carries shining sands and bears "oblivia Lethes" ^[1][2].

The myth thus joined a local story to the Lethes of Greek mythology, the river of the underworld from which the dead drank to forget their lives ^[3].

The Lagoa de Antela and the name Belion

Martínez Cerredelo records an etymological explanation: the Lagoa de Antela was once called Lake Beón, perhaps from Strabo’s Belionis, and folk etymology may have turned that into Oblivionis. The same lagoon was believed to make anyone who drank its water forget their homeland ^[1].

Decimus Junius Brutus

Decimus Junius Brutus was the Roman general of the first great expedition against the peoples of the north-west. According to Elixio Rivas, who follows Appian, he came from the south a year after the death of Viriathus, attacking first the Lusitanians and then the Gallaeci in their hillforts; Florus compared these peoples’ resistance to that of Numantia ^[1][3]. On his return to Rome he was given the surname Callaicus, as Ovid recalls in the Fasti ^[1].

The river-crossing scene re-enacted in Xinzo is the one told by the Enlightenment writer Lucas Labrada: the soldiers, believing the Limia to be the Lethes, did not dare cross; Brutus took the standard, plunged into the water, reached the far bank and called his men from there to prove he had neither died nor forgotten them ^[1][3]. The Galipedia adds that he called them one by one by name ^[4], and that is how the association stages it ^[5].

A disputed date

There is no agreement on the year. Labrada gave 132 BC; Rivas, 138 BC; and Bedoya, based on the Capitoline lists of triumphs, places Brutus’s triumph over the Lusitanians and Gallaeci in 137 BC ^[1]. For the whole campaign, Martínez Cerredelo gives 139–136 BC ^[1]. Civitas Limicorum sets the festival in 137 BC ^[5].

For how the legend is celebrated today, see History of the festival and Typical festival programme.

Sources

1. Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo, "Informe histórico en que se fundamenta a orixe e motivo da celebración da Festa do Esquecemento na vila de Xinzo de Limia", Historia de Xinzo, 01-07-2026. https://historiadexinzo.wordpress.com/2026/07/01/informe-historico-en-que-se-fundamenta-a-orixe-e-motivo-da-celebracion-da-festa-do-esquecemento-na-vila-de-xinzo-de-limia/
2. Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo, "O río Limia, o río do esquecemento", Historia de Xinzo, 31-10-2018. https://historiadexinzo.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/o-rio-limia-o-rio-do-esquecemento/
3. Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo, "A lenda do río Lethes ou río do esquecemento. A 1ª festa en 2001", Historia de Xinzo, 05-08-2022. https://historiadexinzo.wordpress.com/2022/08/05/a-lenda-do-rio-lethes-ou-rio-do-esquecemento-a-1a-festa-en-2001/
4. "Festa do Esquecemento", Galipedia (in Galician; CC BY-SA 4.0). https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festa_do_Esquecemento
5. A.C. Civitas Limicorum, "Acerca de". https://civitaslimicorum.com/acerca-de