circumference of these palaces is three miles. There were battles
fought here in olden times, and in the palace more than 100,000 men
were slain, and there their bones remain piled up to the present day.

[p.10]

The king caused to be engraved a representation of the battle and of
the forces on either side facing one another, both warriors and
horses, all in marble, to exhibit to the world the war of the days of
old.

In Rome there is a cave which runs underground, and catacombs of King
Tarmal Galsin and his royal consort who are to be found there, seated
upon their thrones, and with them about a hundred royal personages.
They are all embalmed and preserved to this day. In the church of St.
John in the Lateran there are two bronze columns taken from the
Temple, the handiwork of King Solomon, each column being engraved
"Solomon the son of David." The Jews of Rome told me that every year
upon the 9th of Ab they found the columns exuding moisture like water.
There also is the cave where Titus the son of Vespasianus stored the
Temple vessels which he brought from Jerusalem. There is also a cave
in a hill on one bank of the River Tiber where are the graves of the
ten martyrs[26].

[p.11]

In front of St. John in the Lateran there are statues of Samson in
marble, with a spear in his hand, and of Absalom the son of King
David, and another of Constantinus the Great, who built Constantinople
and after whom it was called. The last-named statue is of bronze, the