The other great work which Xerxes caused to be performed, for facilitating his march, was, the cutting through of the isthmus which connects the stormy promontory of Mount Athos with the main land.[34] That isthmus, near the point where it joins the main land, was about twelve stadia or furlongs across, from the Strymonic to the Toronaic gulf: and the canal dug by order of Xerxes was broad and deep enough for two triremes to sail abreast. In this work too, as well as in the bridge across the Hellespont, the Phenicians were found the ablest and most efficient among all the subjects of the Persian monarch; but the other tributaries, especially the Greeks from the neighboring town of Akanthus, and indeed the entire maritime forces of the empire,[35] were brought together to assist. The head-quarters of the fleet were first at Kymê and Phokæa, next at Elæus in the southern extremity of the Thracian Chersonese, from which point it could protect and second at once the two enterprises going forward at the Hellespont and at Mount Athos. The canal-cutting at the latter was placed under the general directions of two noble Persians,—Bubarês and Artachæus, and distributed under their measurement as task-work among the contingents of the various nations; an ample supply of flour and other provisions being brought for sale in the neighboring plain from various parts of Asia and Egypt. [34] For a specimen of the destructive storms near the promontory of Athos, see Ephorus, Fragment. 121, ed. Didot; Diodor. xiii, 41. [35] Herodot. vii, 22, 23, 116; Diodor. xi. 2.