The streets were also remarkable: 'The city itself (he says) is full of houses, three or four storeys high, and has been laid out with its streets straight, notably those which run at right angles, that is, those which lead to the river.

Each road runs to a small gate in the brick river-wall: there are as many gates as lanes.'[9] [9] Hdt.i.180 [Greek: To de astu auto, eon pleres ohikieon triorhofon te kai tetrorofon, katatetmetai tas hodous itheas, tas te aggas kai tas epikarsias, tas epi ton potamon echousas].
Apparently [Greek: epikarsias] means, as Stein says, those at right angles to the general course of the river, but this nearly = at right angles to the other roads.

The course of the river appears to have been straighter then than it is now.
In each part of the city (that is, on either bank of the Euphrates) were specially large buildings, in one part the royal palaces, in the other the temple of Zeus Belos, bronze-gated, square in outline, 400 yards in breadth and length.
So far, in brief, Herodotus.

Clearly his words suggest town-planning.
The streets that ran straight and the others that ran at right angles are significant enough, even though we may doubt exactly what is meant by these other streets and what they met or cut at right angles.

But his account cannot be accepted as it stands.