There is a fort in the suburbs of the city, which from its form is called the ‘round fort.’ The road which leads from it to Rhegium passes for the most part over uneven ground, and in rainy seasons used to become swampy and difficult for travellers; now, however, our Emperor has paved it with large stones, and made it easy to traverse. In length this road reaches as far as Rhegium; its width is such that two waggons going in opposite directions can pass without difficulty. The stones of which it is formed are very hard; one would imagine them to be millstones. They are of enormous size, so that each of them covers a large extent of ground, and stands up to a great height. They form so smooth and level a surface that they do not seem to be joined, or carefully let into one another, but to have grown together. Such is this road. There is a lake close to Rhegium, into which rivers flowing from the higher ground discharge their waters. This lake reaches as far as the sea, so that there is but one very narrow bank between them, both washed on either side by their several waters; when, however, they approach most nearly to one another, they restrain their currents and turn them back, as though they had there placed boundaries for themselves. At one point they join one another, leaving a channel between them, of which it is hard to say to which water it belongs, for the water of the sea does not always flow into the lake, nor does the lake always discharge its waters into the sea; but after much rain, and with a southerly wind, the water of the channel appears to flow out of the lake; though if the wind blows from the north, the sea appears to wash into the lake. In this place the sea forms an immense extent of shoal-water, with only one narrow channel leading through them into deep water. This channel is so narrow that it is called the ‘Ant.’ The channel which, as I have said before, joins the lake to the sea, used in former times to be crossed by a wooden bridge, though with great danger to the passengers, who often fell into the water together with the beams of the bridge; now, however, the Emperor Justinian has raised the bridge upon high arches of stone, and rendered the passage safe. Beyond Rhegium there is a city named Athyra, whose inhabitants he relieved from the distress from which he found them suffering from want of water, by building a reservoir there, in which the excess of their water might be stored up, and supplied to them in time of need; he also restored the ruinous part of their wall.