Page 15 - COLLAGE

the winds which blow from within outwards, and on the other side, towards the West and

the Egean, because of the South-East 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, 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, 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. When this was done, they

carried on brushwood, and having set the brushwood also in place, they carried on to it
earth; and when they had stamped down the earth firmly, they built a barrier along on each

side, so that the baggage-animals and horses might not be frightened by looking out over
the sea.

According to John Hale's Lords of the Sea, to celebrate the onset of the Sicilian
Expedition (415 - 413 B.C.), the Athenian general, Nicias, paid builders to engineer an

extraordinary pontoon bridge composed of gilded and tapestried ships for a festival that
drew Athenians and Ionians across the sea to the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. On the

occasion when Nicias was a sponsor, young Athenians paraded across the boats, singing as

they walked, to give the armada a spectacular farewell.

But the most commodious invention is that of the small boats hollowed out of one piece of

timber and very light both by their make and the quality of the wood. The army always has
a number of these boats upon carriages, together with a sufficient quantity of planks and

iron nails. Thus with the help of cables to lash the boats together, a bridge is instantly
constructed, which for the time has the solidity of a bridge of stone.

The emperor Caligula is said to have ridden a horse across a pontoon bridge stretching two
miles between Baiae and Puteoli while wearing the armour of Alexander the Great to mock

a soothsayer who had claimed he had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding
a horse across the Bay of Baiae". Caligula's construction of the bridge cost a massive sum

of money and added to discontent with his rule.

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