But a more memorable historical bridge is admirably described in another military episode of this favorite historian,--that which Alexander of Parma built across the Scheldt, whereby Antwerp was finally won for Philip of Spain. Its construction was a miracle of science and courage; and it became the scene of one of the most terrible tragedies and the most fantastic festivals which signalize the history of that age, and illustrate the extraordinary and momentous struggle for religious liberty in the Netherlands. Its piers extended five hundred feet into the stream,--connected with the shore by boats, defended by palisades, fortified parapets, and spiked rafts; cleft and partially destroyed by the volcanic fireship of Gianebelli, a Mantuan chemist and engineer, whereby a thousand of the best troops of the Spanish army were instantly killed, and their brave chief stunned,--when the hour of victory came to the besiegers, it was the scene of a floral procession and Arcadian banquet, and "the whole extent of its surface from the Flemish to the Brabant shore" was alive with "war-bronzed figures crowned with flowers." "This magnificent undertaking has been favorably compared with the celebrated Rhine bridge of Julius Caesar. When it is remembered, however, that the Roman work was performed in summer, across a river only half as broad as the Scheldt, free from the disturbing action of the tides, and flowing through an unresisting country, while the whole character of the structure, intended only to serve for the single passage of an army, was far inferior to the massive solidity of Parma's bridge, it seems not unreasonable to assign the superiority to the general who had surmounted all the obstacles of a northern winter, vehement ebb and flow from the sea, and enterprising and desperate enemies at every point."[G] Even the fragile bridges of our own country, during the Revolution, have an historical importance in the story of war: the "Great Bridge" across the Elizabeth River, nine miles from Norfolk in Virginia, the floating bridge at Ticonderoga, that which spanned Stony Brook in New Jersey, and many others, are identified with strife or stratagem: King's Bridge was a formidable barrier to the invasion of New York by land. Indeed, from Trenton to Lodi, military annals have few more fierce conflicts than those wherein the bridge of the battle-ground is disputed; to cross one is often a declaration of war, and Rubicons abound in history.