Vitruvius, On Architecture 8.3

8.3.8

Alii autem per pingues terrae venas profluentes uncti oleo fontes erumpunt, uti Solis, quod oppidum est Ciliciae, flumen nomine Liparis, in quo natantes aut lavantes ab ipsa aqua unguntur. similiter Aethiopiae lacus est, qui unctos homines efficit, qui in eo nataverint, et India, qui sereno caelo emittit olei magnam multitudinem, item Carthagini fons, in quo natat insuper oleum, odore uti scobe citreo; quo oleo etiam pecora solent ungere. Zacyntho et circa Dyrrachium et Apolloniam fontes sunt, qui picis magnam multitudinem cum aqua evomunt. Babylone lacus amplissima magnitudine, qui λίμνη ἀσφάλτιτις appellatur, habet supra natans liquidum bitumen; quo bitumine et latere testaceo structum murum Samiramis circumdedit Babyloni. item Iope in Syria Arabiaque Nomadum lacus sunt inmani magnitudine, qui emittunt bituminis maximas moles, quas diripiunt qui habitant circa.

8. Others flow through such greasy veins of soil that they are overspread with oil when they burst out as springs: for example, at Soli, a town in Cilicia, the river named Liparis, in which swimmers or bathers get anointed merely by the water. Likewise there is a lake in Ethiopia which anoints people who swim in it, and one in India which emits a great quantity of oil when the sky is clear. At Carthage is a spring that has oil swimming on its surface and smelling like sawdust from citrus wood, with which oil sheep are anointed. In Zacynthus and about Dyrrachium and Apollonia are springs which discharge a great quantity of pitch with their water. In Babylon, a lake of very great extent, called Lake Asphaltitis, has liquid asphalt swimming on its surface, with which asphalt and with burnt brick Semiramis built the wall surrounding Babylon. At Jaffa in Syria and among the Nomads in Arabia, are lakes of enormous size that yield very large masses of asphalt, which are carried off by the inhabitants thereabouts.