Note 4 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTION.

The average breadth of the Hellespont was about three miles—rather narrow for Homer’s πλατὑς, “the broad.” He, probably, however, looked on it rather as a mighty river; to which, indeed, his epithets of ἀγάῤῥοος and ἀπείρων (“strong-flowing,” and “boundless”) well enough apply. Herodotus calls it δολερὁς and ἀλμυρὁς ποταμός, “a treacherous and unsavoury river” (vii. 35).