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Then we came to an artificial river, by name Naarmalcha, meaning “the kings' river,” 1 which at that time was dried up. Here in days gone by Trajan, and after him Severus, had with immense effort caused the accumulated earth to be dug out, and had made a great canal, in order to let in the water from the Euphrates and give boats and ships access to the Tigris. 2

1 Cf. xxiii. 6, 25; xxiv. 2, 7; 6, 1.

2 A canal from the Euphrates to the Tigris was made by the earliest Assyrian kings (Hdt. i. 193), and a branch of it was carried to Seleucia by Seleucus Nikator, the founder of that city. According to Cassius Dio., lxviii. 28, Trajan's attempt was not successful because the bed of the Euphrates was then much higher.

Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.

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