Res Gestae

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., Ann. 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