Drinking rivers

The Latin phrase flumen bibere (lit. ‘to drink a river’) has the idiomatic meaning of ‘to live by a river’ and is often used with the name of a particular body of water. For instance, Virgil in Eclogue X refers to the  river Hebrus in Thrace with these words:

nec si frigoribus mediis Hebrumque bibamus

(tr. ‘not though we live by (lit. “drink”) the Hebrus in keenest frosts’)

Here the phrase Hebrumque bibamus is equivalent to apud Hebrum vivamus; in other words it is not talking about literally drinking the river, but living close enough to it to be able to do so.

The phrase aquas bibere (lit. ‘to drink the waters’), on the other hand, has the idiomatic sense of ‘to be drowned’.