Then during the following two days we covered 200 stadia and arrived at a place called Baraxmalcha. From there we crossed the river and entered the city of Diacira,In Ptolemy, Idikara; to-day, Hit; known to Hdt. (i. 179). seven miles distant. This place was without inhabitants, but rich in grain and fine white salt; there we saw a temple, standing on a lofty citadel. After burning the city, and killing a few women whom we found, we passed over a spring bubbling with bitumen and took possession of the town of Ozogardana, which the inhabitants had likewise deserted through fear of the approaching army. Here a tribunal of the emperor Trajan was to be seen.Perhaps a memorial to the dead emperor (cf. Tac., ii. 83, where the meaning is uncertain); here perhaps the reference is to a structure built by Trajan while alive.

After burning this city also, and taking two days’ rest, towards the end of the night which followed the second day, the Surena,An official title, something like grand vizier. who among the Persians has won the highest rank after the king, and the Malechus,Also an official title; the Saracens were divided into twelve phylae, or tribes, each presided over by a phylarch, or malechus; an emir. Podosaces by name, phylarch of the Assanitic Saracens, a notorious brigand, who with every kind of cruelty had long raided our territories,For limites, in this sense, see xxiii. 6, 55, above. laid an ambuscade for Ormizda, who, as they had learned (one knew not from what source), was on the point of setting out to reconnoitre. But their attempt failed, because the river at that point is narrow and very deep, and hence could not be forded.