II. In Bithynia there is a city[88] named after Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, in which they say that Helena was born, and which in former times was an inconsiderable village. The Emperor Constantine, out of filial duty, gave this place its name and the dignity of a city, but built nothing there on an imperial or magnificent scale; for the place remained in its former condition in respect of its buildings, but merely had the glory of being called a city, and prided itself on being named after Helena, to whom it had given birth. However, the Emperor of our own age, as though wishing to put away the reproach of the founder of the empire, first supplied this city, which he found suffering from want of water, with a magnificent aqueduct, and furnished the inhabitants beyond their expectation with enough water not only to drink, but also to wash in, and to use for all the other luxuries of life, as they were now supplied with water in abundance; in addition to this he built for them a new public bath, and restored another which had fallen into ruins and been neglected through the want of water which I have mentioned, so that it had all fallen to the ground. He also built churches, palaces, porticos, and dwellings for the magistrates, and supplied all the other needs of a flourishing city. Close by this city flows a river, which the natives from its form call Draco (the snake); for it winds in curves on either hand, often proceeding in opposite directions, bending its waters round in a crooked course, and flowing now to the right hand and now to the left; so that travellers coming to the city were obliged to cross it more than twenty times.[89] Many of them thus perished through the river suddenly rising in flood; besides which, a thick wood and masses of reeds, which encumbered its outfall into the sea, made it a source of trouble to the country; indeed, not very long ago, after much rain, it overflowed its banks and inundated a great part of the country, doing irreparable damage; for it swept away many fields, uprooted vines, olives, and numberless fruit-trees of all kinds, and also the houses which stood outside the walls of the city, besides doing other important damage to the inhabitants. The Emperor Justinian, out of pity for them, devised the following plan: he cleared away the woods, and cut down all the reeds, so as to enable the river to discharge itself freely into the sea, so that it would no longer be forced to overflow its banks. He also cut through the mountains which stand in that country, and made a carriage-road through places which formerly had been rough and precipitous. By this means he rendered it unnecessary for the greater part of the inhabitants to cross the river at all, whilst he threw two bridges of great width across it, so that henceforth they could pass over it without danger.