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36.
So this was done by those who were appointed to the thankless honor, and new engineers set about making the bridges. They made the bridges as follows: in order to lighten the strain of the cables, they placed fifty-oared ships and triremes alongside each other, three hundred and sixty to bear the bridge nearest the Euxine sea, and three hundred and fourteen to bear the other; all lay obliquely to the line of the Pontus and parallel with the current of the Hellespont.1
[2]
After putting the ships together they let down very great anchors, both from the end of the ships on the Pontus side to hold fast against the winds blowing from within that sea, and from the other end, towards the west and the Aegean, to hold against the west and south winds. They left a narrow opening to sail through in the line of fifty-oared ships and triremes, that so whoever wanted to could sail by small craft to the Pontus or out of it.
[3]
After doing this, they stretched the cables from the land, twisting them taut with wooden windlasses; they did not as before keep the two kinds apart, but assigned for each bridge two cables of flax and four of papyrus.
[4]
All these had the same thickness and fine appearance, but the flaxen were heavier in proportion, for a cubit of them weighed a talent.2
[5]
When the strait was thus bridged, they sawed logs of wood to a length equal to the breadth of the floating supports,3 and laid them in order on the taut cables; after placing them together they then made them fast. After doing this, they carried brushwood onto the bridge; when this was all laid in order they heaped earth on it and stamped it down; then they made a fence on either side, so that the beasts of burden and horses not be frightened by the sight of the sea below them.
1 Or it may mean, as Stein thinks, that the ships of the upper or N.E. bridge were ἐπικαρσίαι, and those of the lower or S.W. one were κατὰ ῥόον. For a discussion of the various difficulties and interpretations of the whole passage, see How and Wells' notes, ad loc.
2 About 80 lbs.
3 i.e. the line of ships supporting the cables.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (45 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 9.70
- Cross-references to this page (4):
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(40):
- LSJ, ἄγκυ_ρα
- LSJ, ἄχα^ρις
- LSJ, ἀνοκωχεύω
- LSJ, διέκ-πλοος
- LSJ, ἔσωθεν
- LSJ, ἐκ-πνέω
- LSJ, ἐμβριθ-ής
- LSJ, ἐπιφορ-έω
- LSJ, ἐπικάρσιος
- LSJ, ἐπιμήκης
- LSJ, ἐπι-ζεύγνυ_μι
- LSJ, φραγ-μός
- LSJ, γεφυ_ρ-όω
- LSJ, καλλονή
- LSJ, καθίημι
- LSJ, καθύπερθε
- LSJ, κατανάσσω
- LSJ, κατα-πρίω
- LSJ, κατατείνω
- LSJ, κόσμος
- LSJ, κορμός
- LSJ, λεπτός
- LSJ, λίν-εος
- LSJ, λόγος
- LSJ, ὅς
- LSJ, ὄνος
- LSJ, παρερύω
- LSJ, πα^χύτης
- LSJ, περιμήκ-ετος
- LSJ, πλοῖον
- LSJ, στρεβλ-όω
- LSJ, συντίθημι
- LSJ, τάσσω
- LSJ, τι_μ-ή
- LSJ, τόν-ος
- LSJ, τρι^ήρ-ης
- LSJ, τρι^χοῦ
- LSJ, ὕλη
- LSJ, ὑπερορ-άω
- LSJ, ὑπόφαυσις
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