These remarks upon the enterprise are more judicious than those of Major Rennell (Geogr. of Herodot. p. 116). I may remark that Herodotus does not affirm that the actual cutting of the canal occupied three years,—he assigns that time to the cutting with all its preliminary arrangements included,—προετοιμάζετο ἐκ τρίων ἐτέων κου μάλιστα τὰ ἐς τὸν Ἄθων (vii, 22). [37] Herodot. vii, 22: ὤρυσσον ὑπὸ μαστίγων παντοδαποὶ τῆς στρατιῆς· διάδοχοι δ’ ἐφοίτων.—vii, 56: Ξέρξης δὲ, ἐπεί τε διέβη ἐς τὴν Εὐρώπην, ἐθηεῖτο τὸν στρατὸν ὑπὸ μαστίγων διαβαίνοντα:—compare vii, 103, and Xenophon, Anabasis, iii, 4-25. The essential necessity, and plentiful use, of the whip, towards subject-tributaries, as conceived by the ancient Persians, finds its parallel in the modern Turks. See the Mémoires du Baron de Tott, vol. i, p. 256, _seqq._, and his dialogue on this subject with his Turkish conductor Ali-Aga. At the same time that the subject-contingents of Xerxes excavated this canal, which was fortified against the sea at its two extremities by compact earthen walls, or embankments, they also threw bridges of boats over the river Strymon: and these two works, together with the renovated double bridge across the Hellespont, were both announced to Xerxes as completed and ready for passage, on his arrival at Sardis at the beginning of winter, 481-480 B. C. Whether the whole of his vast army arrived at Sardis at the same time as himself, and wintered there, may reasonably be doubted; but the whole was united at Sardis and ready to march against Greece, at the beginning of spring, 480 B. C.