Histories

There is another city, called Is,[*](The modern Hit or Ait, where the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), AsiaEuphrates enters the alluvial plain.) eight days' journey from Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon, where there is a little river, also named Is, a tributary of the Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), AsiaEuphrates river; from the source of this river Is, many lumps of bitumen rise with the water; and from there the bitumen was brought for the wall of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon.

Thus, then, this wall was built; the city is divided into two parts; for it is cut in half by a river named Euphrates [47.5,31.83] (river), AsiaEuphrates, a wide, deep, and swift river, flowing from Armenia (region (general)), AsiaArmenia and issuing into the Red Sea [42,15] (sea) Red Sea.

The angles of the wall, then, on either side are built quite down to the river; here they turn, and from here a fence of baked bricks runs along each bank of the stream.

The city itself is full of houses three and four stories high; and the ways that traverse it, those that run crosswise towards the river and the rest, are all straight.

Further, at the end of each road there was a gate in the riverside fence, one gate for each alley; these gates also were of bronze, and these too opened on the river.