7.22.2
Bubares son of Megabazus and Artachaees son of Artaeus, both Persians, were the overseers of the workmen. Athos is a great and famous mountain, running out into the sea and inhabited by men. At the mountain's landward end it is in the form of a peninsula, and there is an isthmus about twelve stadia wide; here is a place of level ground or little hills, from the sea by Acanthus to the sea opposite Torone.
7.22.3
On this isthmus which is at the end of Athos, there stands a Greek town, Sane; there are others situated seaward of Sane and landward of Athos, and the Persian now intended to make them into island and not mainland towns; they are Dion, Olophyxus, Acrothoum, Thyssus, and Cleonae.
ch. 23
7.23.1
These are the towns situated on Athos. The foreigners dug as follows, note dividing up the ground by nation: they made a straight line near the town of Sane; when the channel had been dug to some depth, some men stood at the bottom of it and dug, others took the dirt as it was dug out and delivered it to yet others that stood higher on stages, and they again to others as they received it, until they came to those that were highest; these carried it out and threw it away.
7.23.2
For all except the Phoenicians, the steep sides of the canal caved in, doubling their labor; since they made the span the same breadth at its mouth and at the bottom, this was bound to happen.
7.23.3
But the Phoenicians showed the same skill in this as in all else they do; taking in hand the portion that fell to them, they dug by making the topmost span of the canal as wide again as the canal was to be, and narrowed it as they worked lower, until at the bottom their work was of the same span as that of the others.
7.23.4
There is a meadow there, where they made a place for buying and marketing; much ground grain frequently came to them from Asia.
ch. 24
7.24.1
As far as I can judge by conjecture, Xerxes gave the command for this digging out of pride, wishing to display his power and leave a memorial; with no trouble they could have drawn their ships across the isthmus, yet he ordered them to dig a canal from sea to sea, wide enough to float two triremes rowed abreast. The same men who were assigned the digging were also assigned to join the banks of the river Strymon by a bridge.
ch. 25
7.25.1
Thus Xerxes did this. He assigned the Phoenicians and Egyptians to make ropes of papyrus and white flax for the bridges, note and to store provisions for his army, so that neither the army nor the beasts of burden would starve on the march to Hellas.
7.25.2
After making inquiry, he ordered them to store it in the most fitting places, carrying it to the various places from all parts of Asia in cargo ships and transports. They brought most of it to the White Headland (as it is called) in Thrace; some were dispatched to Tyrodiza in the Perinthian country or to Doriscus, others to Eion on the Strymon or to Macedonia.
ch. 26
7.26.1
While these worked at their appointed task, all the land force had been mustered and was marching with Xerxes to Sardis, setting forth from Critalla in Cappadocia, which was the place appointed for gathering all the army that was to march with Xerxes himself by land.
7.26.2
Now which of his governors received the promised gifts from the king for bringing the best-equipped army, I cannot say; I do not even know if the matter was ever determined.
