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It seems to me, when I consider this work, that Xerxes, in making
it, was actuated by a feeling of pride, wishing to display the extent
of his power, and to leave a memorial behind him to posterity. For
notwithstanding that it was open to him, with no trouble at all, to
have had his ships drawn across the isthmus, yet he issued orders that
a canal should be made through which the sea might flow, and that it
should be of such a width as would allow of two triremes passing through
it abreast with the oars in action. He likewise gave to the same
persons who were set over the digging of the trench, the task of making
a bridge across the river Strymon.
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