4.85.1
But Darius, when he came to that place in his march from Susa where the Bosporus was bridged in the territory of Calchedon, went aboard ship and sailed to the Dark Rocks note (as they are called), which the Greeks say formerly moved; there, he sat on a headland and viewed the Pontus, a marvellous sight.
4.85.2
For it is the most wonderful sea of all. Its length is eleven thousand one hundred stades, and its breadth three thousand three hundred stades at the place where it is widest. note
4.85.3
The channel at the entrance of this sea is four stades across; the narrow neck of the channel, called Bosporus, across which the bridge was thrown, is about one hundred and twenty stades long. The Bosporus reaches as far as to the Propontis;
4.85.4
and the Propontis is five hundred stades wide and one thousand four hundred long; its outlet is the Hellespont, which is no wider than seven stades and four hundred long. The Hellespont empties into a gulf of the sea which we call Aegean.
ch. 86
4.86.1
These measurements have been made in this way: a ship will generally accomplish seventy thousand orguiae note in a long day's voyage, and sixty thousand by night.
4.86.2
This being granted, seeing that from the Pontus' mouth to the Phasis (which is the greatest length of the sea) it is a voyage of nine days and eight nights, the length of it will be one million one hundred and ten thousand orguiai, which make eleven thousand stades.
4.86.3
From the Sindic region to Themiscura on the Thermodon river (the greatest width of the Pontus) it is a voyage of three days and two nights; that is, of three hundred and thirty thousand orguiai, or three thousand three hundred stades.
4.86.4
Thus have I measured the Pontus and the Bosporus and Hellespont, and they are as I have said. Furthermore, a lake is seen issuing into the Pontus and not much smaller than the sea itself; it is called the Maeetian lake, and the mother of the Pontus.
ch. 87
4.87.1
After having viewed the Pontus, Darius sailed back to the bridge, whose architect was Mandrocles of Samos; and when he had viewed the Bosporus also, he set up two pillars of white marble by it, engraving on the one in Assyrian and on the other in Greek characters the names of all the nations that were in his army: all the nations subject to him. The full census of these, over and above the fleet, was seven hundred thousand men, including horsemen, and the number of ships assembled was six hundred.
4.87.2
These pillars were afterward carried by the Byzantines into their city and there used to build the altar of Orthosian note Artemis, except for one column covered with Assyrian writing that was left beside the temple of Dionysus at Byzantium. Now if my reckoning is correct, the place where king Darius bridged the Bosporus was midway between Byzantium and the temple at the entrance of the sea.
