herodotus

succession: moreover those who dwelt round about Athos worked also atthe digging: and Bubares the son of Megabazos and Artachaies the sonof Artaios, Persians both, were set over the work. Now Athos is amountain great and famous, running down to the sea and inhabited bymen: and where the mountain ends on the side of the mainland the placeis like a peninsula with an isthmus about twelve furlongs[24] across.Here it is plain land or hills of no great size, extending from thesea of the Acanthians to that which lies off Torone; and on thisisthmus, where Athos ends, is situated a Hellenic city called Sane:moreover there are others beyond Sane[25] and within the peninsula ofAthos, all which at this time the Persian had resolved to make intocities of an island and no longer of the mainland; these are, Dion,Olophyxos, Acrothoon, Thyssos, Cleonai. 23. These are the cities whichoccupy Athos: and they dug as follows, the country being divided amongthe Barbarians by nations for the work:--at the city of Sane they drewa straight line across the isthmus, and when the channel became deep,those who stood lowest dug, while others delivered the earth as it wasdug out to other men who stood above, as upon steps, and they again toothers when it was received, until they came to those that werehighest; and these bore it away and cast it forth. Now the othersexcept the Phenicians had double toil by the breaking down of thesteep edges of their excavation; for since they endeavoured to makethe opening at the top and that at the bottom both of the samemeasure, some such thing was likely to result, as they worked: but thePhenicians, who are apt to show ability in their works generally, didso in this work also; for when they had had assigned to them by lot somuch as fell to their share, they proceeded to dig, making the openingof the excavation at the top twice as wide as the channel itself wasto be; and as the work went forward, they kept contracting the width;so that, when they came to the bottom, their work was made of equalwidth with that of the others. Now there is a meadow there, in whichthere was made for them a market and a place for buying and selling;and great quantities of corn came for them regularly from Asia, readyground. 24. It seems to me, making conjecture of this work, thatXerxes when he ordered this to be dug was moved by a love ofmagnificence and by a desire to make a display of his power and toleave a memorial behind him; for though they might have drawn theships across the isthmus with no great labour, he bade them dig achannel for the sea of such breadth that two triremes might sailthrough, propelled side by side. To these same men to whom the digginghad been appointed, it was appointed also to make a bridge over theriver Strymon, yoking together the banks.25. These things were being done by Xerxes thus; and meanwhile hecaused ropes also to be prepared for the bridges, made of papyrus andof white flax,[26] appointing this to the Phenicians and Egyptians;