In some of the words used by Herodotus there appears an obscurity: they run thus,—ἐζεύγνυσαν δὲ ὧδε· Πεντηκοντέρους καὶ τριήρεας συνθέντες, ὑπὸ μὲν τὴν (these words are misprinted in Bähr’s edition) πρὸς τοῦ Εὐξείνου Πόντου ἐξήκοντά τε καὶ τριηκοσίας, ὑπὸ δὲ τὴν ἑτέρην τέσσερες καὶ δέκα καὶ τριηκοσὶας (τοῦ μὲν Πόντου, ἐπικαρσίας, τοῦ δὲ Ἑλλησπόντου κατὰ ῥόον), ἵνα ἀνακωχεύῃ τὸν τόνον τῶν ὅπλων· συνθέντες δὲ, ἀγκύρας κατῆκαν περιμήκεας, etc.
There is a difficulty respecting the words ἵνα ἀνακωχεύῃ τὸν τόνον τῶν ὅπλων,—what is the nominative case to this verb? Bähr says in his note, sc. ὁ ῥόος, and he construes τῶν ὅπλων to mean the cables whereby the anchors were held fast. But if we read farther on, we shall see that τὰ ὅπλα mean, not the anchor-cables, but the cables which were stretched across from shore to shore to form the bridge; the very same words τῶν ὅπλων τοῦ τόνου, applied to these latter cables, occur a few lines afterwards. I think that the nominative case belonging to ἀνακωχεύῃ is ἡ γεφύρα (not ὁ ῥόος), and that the words from τοῦ μὲν Πόντου down to ῥόον are to be read parenthetically, as I have printed them above: the express object for which the ships were moored was, “that the bridge might hold up, or sustain, the tension of its cables stretched across from shore to shore.” I admit that we should naturally expect ἀνακωχεύωσι and not ἀνακωχεύῃ, since the proposition would be true of both bridges; but though this makes an awkward construction, it is not inadmissible, since each bridge had been previously described in the singular number.
Bredow and others accuse Herodotus of ignorance and incorrectness in this description of the bridges, but there seems nothing to bear out this charge.
Herodotus (iv, 85), Strabo (xiii, p. 591), and Pliny (H. N. iv, 12; vi, 1) give seven stadia as the breadth of the Hellespont in its narrowest part. Dr. Pococke also assigns the same breadth: Tournefort allows but a mile (vol. ii, lett. 4). Some modern French measurements give the distance as something considerably greater,—eleven hundred and thirty or eleven hundred and fifty toises (see Miot’s note on his translation of Herodotus). The Duke of Ragusa states it at seven hundred toises (Voyage en Turquie, vol. ii, p. 164). If we suppose the breadth to be one mile, or five thousand two hundred and eighty feet, three hundred and sixty vessels at an average breadth of fourteen and two thirds feet would exactly fill the space. Rennell says, “Eleven feet is the breadth of a barge: vessels of the size of the smallest coasting-craft were adequate to the purpose of the bridge.” (On the Geography of Herodotus, p. 127.)
The recent measurements or estimates stated by Miot go much beyond Herodotus: that of the Duke of Ragusa nearly coincides with him. But we need not suppose that the vessels filled up entirely the whole breadth, without leaving any gaps between: we only know, that there were no gaps left large enough for a vessel in voyage to sail through, except in three specified places.
[33] For the long celebrity of these cables, see the epigram of Archimêlus, composed two centuries and a half afterwards, in the time of Hiero the Second, of Syracuse, ap. Athenæum, v, 209.
Herodotus states that in thickness and compact make (παχυτὴς καὶ καλλονὴ) the cables of flax were equal to those of papyrus; but that in weight the former were superior; for each cubit in length of the flaxen cable weighed a talent: we can hardly reason upon this, because we do not know whether he means an Attic, an Euboic, or an Æginæan talent: nor, if he means an Attic talent, whether it be an Attic talent of commerce, or of the monetary standard.
The cables contained in the Athenian dockyard are distinguished as σχοίνια ὀκτωδάκτυλα, ἐξδάκτυλα,—in which expressions, however, M. Boeckh cannot certainly determine whether circumference or diameter be meant: he thinks probably the former. See his learned book, Das Seewesen der Athener, ch. x, p. 165.
[34] For a specimen of the destructive storms near the promontory of Athos, see Ephorus, Fragment. 121, ed. Didot; Diodor. xiii, 41.
[35] Herodot. vii, 22, 23, 116; Diodor. xi. 2.