Note 66 — Chapter I · CIVIL AND MILITARY ARCHITECTURE.

Herodotus, i. 186; Diodorus, ii. viii. 2. Diodorus, following Ctesias, greatly exaggerates the length of the bridge when he puts it at fifty-five stades (3,032 feet). Even if we admit that the Euphrates, which in ancient times lost less of its waters in the adjoining marshes than it does now, was then considerably wider than at present, we can hardly account for such a difference. On the subject of this bridge see Oppert, Expédition &c., vol. i. pp. 191–193.