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τοῖσι ... τιμή: a periphrasis for executioners; cf. ch. 39. 3, 238. 2; iii. 29. 2. ἄλλοι ἀρχιτέκτονες. The bridge-builder is said to have been Harpalus (Diels, Laterculi Alexandrini, p. 8, Abh. Berlin. Akad. 1904). συνθέντες (cf. § 2): not fastening the ships together as in a pontoon, but ‘so placing them, that, while each of them was held in position by its own anchors, they lay in a line under the cables, near enough together to support them, and far enough apart to keep clear of each other in a high sea’. Arrian (Anab. v. 7) describes the operation as carried out by the Romans, contrasting their method with that described by H. The varying number of vessels used in the two bridges is due to the varying breadth of the straits (cf. 34 n.). H. does not mean that one bridge was built of triremes and the other of penteconters, but that both triremes and penteconters were used in both bridges, the triremes being used where the current flowed strongest, while differences in height above the water could be met by differences in loading. ὑπὸ μὲν τήν (sc. γέφυραν). H. regards the cables with the roadway as the true bridge. τὴν ἑτέρην: the bridge towards the Aegean as distinct from that nearer the Euxine. ἐπικαρσίας (cf. i. 180. 3; iv. 101. 3 n.), ‘at an angle’, and properly at a right angle (L. & S.). The passage is taken in two completely different ways: (1) The whole of it is referred to both bridges (Grote, v. 362 f.; Rawlinson, Macan). ‘The boats, which are parallel to the stream of the Hellespont (κατὰ ῥόον), are at a right angle to the Pontus.’ The Hellespont in general is of course not at a right angle to the Euxine, or to the Propontis, if the Pontus includes that (cf. ch. 95 n.), though the portion between Abydos and Madytus (but not that between Abydos and Sestos) is. But H., who is often loose in his orientation, may well have believed the Hellespont to be at right angles to the Pontus. (Schweig. thinking the Pontus too remote, conjectured πόρου.) On this interpretation H. states rather loosely an obvious fact. (2) Stein (cf. also Grundy, p. 215; Hauvette, p. 295) takes ἐπικαρσίας as referring to the upper (NE.) bridge, and κατὰ ῥόον to the lower (SW.) one. He takes ἐπικαρσίας to mean ‘athwart the current’, and believes that H. has misunderstood or misreported his informants. He thinks the passage refers to the peculiarity of the local currents reported by Strabo (591). The current is not parallel to the banks, but a little south of Sestos, near the tower of Hero, runs right across the strait to Abydos (cf. Polyb. xvi. 29), so that if you want to cross from Sestos to Abydos you row down to the tower of Hero and then are carried across by the current; if from Abydos to Sestos, you row a mile along the Asiatic shore before crossing, so as to avoid meeting the current full. The landing-place near Sestos was called Ἀπόβαθρα, and here, by the Ἀκτὴ Σεστίας καθ᾽ ἣν τὸ Ξέρξου ζεῦγμα, was the end of the north-east bridge (Strabo 331, fr. 55). Hence the ships of the north-east bridge would have been ‘oblique’ to the direction of the straits, because their prows were turned to face the strong local crosscurrent, while those of the south-west bridge would be strictly parallel to the banks of the Hellespont. The objections to this interpretation are (1) the inferior meaning given to ἐπικαρσίας and the extreme difficulty of separating it from κατὰ ῥόον; (2) the improbability that H., who ignores the current, should thus indirectly and obscurely allude to its action. ἀνακωχεύῃ (sc. ἡ γέφυρα): so that the bridge (i. e. here the moored ships) might give the strained cables support (abstract for concrete; cf. § 4 and ix. 118. 1). Bähr, however, thinks the cables are those of the anchors mentioned in the next line, and that the current (ὁ ῥόος） was to ‘keep these taut’.
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