Encamped by a deserted city named Larisa

From Xenophon's March by John Prevas, page 125.

The Greeks continued their march all the rest of that day without seeing any Persians. By nightfall they had reached the banks of the Tigris River again and encamped by a deserted city named Larisa. Larisa had once been a great city of the Assyrians. Even deserted it was still an imposing structure with walls twenty-five feet in width and a hundred feet high. The walls were built of clay bricks and rested upon a stone foundation. Cyrus the Great, it was said, had laid siege to this city but the walls were so thick and high he was never able to take it. The next day the Greeks marched about twenty miles and came to another deserted city, Mespila, the famous capital of the Assyrian Empire. From there the Greeks marched forward about another twenty miles.

I am fascinated to think of those Greeks twenty-five hundred years ago, marching through landscapes filled with abandoned cities already ancient in those ancient times. If I picture it in my mind's eye it almost feels like science fiction or fantasy than history.