Caligula Trumps Xerxes

     Xerxes, King of Persia, built two floating bridges of different lengths over the Hellespont (Dardanelles) before he invaded Greece in 480 B.C. The approximate length of the longer bridge was one mile. The building of these bridges was one of the greatest engineering feats of ancient times. Go to this interactive website to view and build a virtual model: http://edsitement.neh.gov/student-resource/300-spartans-bridge-over-hellespont.
     Historian Herodotus describes an initial bridge failure which was rectified by Xerxes.
     This headland was the point to which Xerxes' engineers carried their two bridges from Abydos. One was constructed by the Phoenicians using flax cables, the other by Egyptians using papyrus cables.
     A three foot section of the flax cable weighed 114 lbs.
     When the bridges were completed across the Hellespont, a storm of great violence smashed them and carried everything away. Xerxes was extremely angry. He gave orders to his soldiers that the Hellespont should receive 300 lashes and a pair of fetters thrown into it. He sent his soldiers to brand it with hot irons. Xerxes also cut off the heads of the bridge builders -- to which Governor Cuomo should take note, as it may apply to state bridge-building contractors.
     Two new bridges were started and completed. Galleys and triremes were tied together to support the bridges -- 360 vessels for one bridge and 314 for the other. Masts and superstructures were flattened, and anchors were laid upstream and downstream from each vessel. Cables were hauled taut by wooden winches ashore. Planks were lashed to the cables, and the planks were covered with brush and sod. A paling was constructed on each side, high enough to prevent horses and mules from seeing over and taking fright at the water.
     Xerxes reviewed his army and the crossing began. The crossing occupied seven days and nights without a break. After the whole army had reached the European shore and the forward march had begun, an extraordinary thing occurred -- a mare gave birth to a hare. Xerxes paid no attention to this omen.
     Having digested the humor in it, let's leap forward 519 years to 39 A.D. when Caligula built a floating bridge in the Bay of Naples. Suetonius describes Caligula (Gaius) and the building and use of his floating bridge. (Note: A Roman mile is .92 of our statute mile.)
     One of his spectacles was on such a fantastic scale that nothing like it had been seen before. He collected all available merchant ships  and anchored them in two lines, close together, the whole way from Baiae to the mole at Puteoli, a distance of  three and a half Roman miles. Then he had earth heaped on their planks, and made a kind of Appian Way along which he trotted back and forth for two consecutive days...Gaius is, of course, generally supposed to have built the bridge as an improvement on Xerxes famous feat of bridging the much narrower Hellespont.
     Historian Cassius Dio added that Caligula ordered resting places to be built along the bridge, complete with drinking water.