“‘First of all, the people residing in and about that ancient metropolis bridged over those girdles of water, making a causeway to and from the royal palace. In this place, which had been the residence of the gods and their ancestors, they, at the beginning, erected the palace; and each [king] in turn, receiving it from his predecessor, and further embellishing the ornamental parts, continually surpassed the one before him, until they made the building very attractive to the sight, on account of its size and the beauty of its elaborations. They dug a canal, beginning at the sea, three plethra[21] broad, a hundred feet deep, and fifty stadia in length, to the outermost girdle, and thus made a channel to it from the sea as into a harbor, by enlarging its mouth sufficiently to admit the largest vessels. Besides this, they separated by aqueducts the girdles of land which separated those of water, so that a trireme[22] could be taken from one girdle of water to another, arching the girdles of land to allow a water-way beneath them; for the banks of the girdles of land rose to a height considerably above the water. And the greatest of these girdles into which the sea flowed was three stadia in width, and the girdle of land next to it was of the same width. The second girdle of water was two stadia in width and the second girdle of land the same. The last girdle of water, environing the centre of the island, was only one stadium wide, and the island, on which the king’s palace stood, had a diameter of five stadia. This island, as well as the girdles of land, and the bridge (which was a plethron in width), they inclosed on the sides with stone walls, erecting towers and gates at intervals on the aqueducts where the water passed through [the girdles of land]. The stone for the walls they quarried within the limits of the island, both in the centre, and inside and outside the girdles; one kind of it was white, a second black, a third red; and by thus quarrying they made at the same time openings which served for two docks, having likewise a covering of rock. Of the buildings, some were of plain structure, while others they built of a composite style of architecture, using the different kinds of stone as pleased them most, thus realizing a pleasure becoming their natures. And they covered the whole circuit of the wall round the extreme outer girdle with bronze, applying it as they would plaster. The next wall inside of it they covered with melted tin, and the wall round the citadel with _orichalcum_ that has a fiery resplendence. “‘Further, the royal palace within the citadel was constructed in the following manner: In the centre of it a temple was erected, difficult of access, sacred to Cleito and Poseidon, surrounded by an inclosure of gold; for on this spot they begat and raised the race of the ten kings, and where also their descendants, making annual collections from all the ten allotments, offered seasonable sacrifices to each one.