Histories

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.

All these had the same thickness and fine appearance, but the flaxen were heavier in proportion, for a cubit of them weighed a talent.[*](About 80 lbs.)

When the strait was thus bridged, they sawed logs of wood to a length equal to the breadth of the floating supports,[*](i.e. the line of ships supporting the cables.) 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.