had been made and broke it
up. Then when Xerxes heard it he was exceedingly enraged, and bade them
scourge the Hellespont with three hundred strokes of the lash and let
down into the sea a pair of fetters. Nay, I have heard further that he
sent branders also with them to brand the Hellespont. However this
may be, he enjoined them, as they were beating, to say Barbarian and
presumptuous words as follows: "Thou bitter water, thy master lays upon
thee this penalty, because thou didst wrong him not having suffered any
wrong from him: and Xerxes the king will pass over thee whether thou be
willing or no; but with right, as it seems, no man doeth sacrifice to
thee, seeing that thou art a treacherous 33 and briny stream." The sea
he enjoined them to chastise thus, and also he bade them cut off the
heads of those who were appointed to have charge over the bridging of
the Hellespont.

36. Thus then the men did, to whom this ungracious office belonged; and
meanwhile other chief-constructors proceeded to make the bridges;
and thus they made them:--They put together fifty-oared galleys and
triremes, three hundred and sixty to be under the bridge towards the
Euxine Sea, and three hundred and fourteen to be under the other, the
vessels lying in the direction of the stream of the Hellespont (though
crosswise in respect to the Pontus), to support the tension of the
ropes. 34 They placed them together thus, and let down very large
anchors, those on the one side 35 towards the Pontus because of the
winds which blow from within outwards, and on the other side, towards
the West and the Egean, because of the South-East 36 and South Winds.
They left also an opening for a passage through, so that any who wished
might be able to sail into the Pontus with small vessels, 37 and also
from the Pontus outwards. Having thus done, they proceeded to stretch
tight the ropes, straining them with wooden windlasses, not now
appointing the two kinds of rope to be used apart from one another, but
assigning to each bridge two ropes of white flax and four of the papyrus
ropes. The thickness and beauty of make was the same for both, but the
flaxen ropes were heavier in proportion, 38 and of this rope a cubit
weighed one talent. When the passage was bridged over, they sawed up
logs of wood, and making them equal in length to the breadth of the
bridge they laid them above the stretched ropes, and having set them
thus in order they again fastened them above. 39 W