storm caught at sea were driven ashore; some near the place called Ipni, "the Ovens," at the foot of Pelion, others on the beach; some were dashed on Cape Sepias itself; some were wrecked near the cities of Melibœa and of Casthanæa. The storm was indeed irresistible."
Hauling the ships on shore seems to have been customary in those days; for, in another place, (when referring to the ship-canal Xerxes[1] had ordered to be cut to the north of the headland of Athos,) Herodotus[2] remarks that "it was possible, without any great labour, to have drawn his ships over the isthmus."
Discrepancy between the different accounts. It is not easy to account for the discrepancy in the statements about the number of men each of the vessels carried, or to comprehend the facility with which they were drawn up on a beach in the face of an approaching storm, or how they could, as Herodotus suggests, have been transported across the isthmus. Possibly Herodotus was misinformed as to the number of men in each of the vessels. Curiously enough, the descriptions preserved of the fleets and
- ↑ Some ancient, as well as many modern writers, have questioned the story of this canal (Cf. Juvenal, x. 173, 174); but later researches have shown that there are undoubted remains of this great work. Captain Spratt, R.N., has surveyed it thoroughly, and has published an account and map thereof in the "Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc." v. 17. The canal now forms a line of ponds, from 2 to 8 feet deep, and from 60 to 90 broad, extending from sea to sea. It is cut through tertiary sands, which would naturally fall in, as Herodotus states (vii. 23). Previously to Spratt, the genuineness of this work had been maintained by Choiseul-Gouffier, Voy. Pittor. ii. i. 148; Colonel Leake, "Northern Greece," ii. 145; and Sir George Bowen, "Athos," p. 57. Moreover, we can hardly fancy that Herodotus could be in error about a work of such magnitude, and executed only thirty-six years before he publicly read his history at the Olympic Games, B.C. 445.
- ↑ Herod. vii. ch. 24.
