City
Bathna
~ Al Bab
Listen to the story
Bathna lay on the road from Beroia, today's Aleppo, to Hierapolis, modern Manbij, in the Syrian district of Cyrrhestica, and is placed near Al Bab in Syria. The emperor Julian, writing in one of his letters, described it as a charming spot planted with many cypresses in a fair and fertile plain. The old name is said to survive in a valley between the two cities. On the map the town sits eighteen Roman miles from Bersera and another eighteen from Hierapolis, though a station seems to have dropped out along the way.