Eighteen cities

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Across
  1. 2. tiny town full of wicked poisons
  2. 5. bistecca; birth place of a great poet
  3. 7. centre of faith; arid
  4. 11. a saintly figure in a nation now off limits
  5. 12. a woman of many eras beneath a mountain
  6. 13. the soul of a nation split in two
  7. 14. music; more than working nine to five
  8. 16. pons aelius and rusted angels
  9. 17. on a scale unlike any other
Down
  1. 1. home of a cathedral of bones
  2. 3. a western city with a needle in its heart
  3. 4. sandstone cliffs; long dead
  4. 6. choose life in a fringe location
  5. 8. a city of two names over a strait
  6. 9. hills and shiny slides
  7. 10. former imperial centre of the eagle; shares a name with the nation
  8. 14. a dense grid with a heart of green
  9. 15. city without a centre