Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/259

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SILVAE, IV. iii. 36–62

now a journey that once wore out a solid day is performed in scarce two hours. No swifter fare ye through the heavens, ye birds with outstretched pinions, nor will ye more swiftly sail, ye ships.

The first labour was to prepare furrows and mark out the borders of the road,[1] and to hollow out the ground with deep excavation; then to fill up the dug trench with other material,[2] and to make ready a base for the road’s arched ridge, lest the soil give way and a treacherous bed provide a doubtful resting-place for the o’erburdened stones: then to bind it with blocks set close on either side and frequent wedges. Oh! how many gangs are at work together! Some cut down the forest and strip the mountain-sides, some plane down beams and boulders with iron; others bind the stones together,[2] and interweave the work with baked sand and dirty tufa; others by dint of toil dry up the thirsty pools, and lead far away the lesser streams. These hands could hollow out Athos, and bar with no floating bridge the doleful sea of moaning Helle. These hands, did not the gods forbid the passage,[3] had made Ino’s puny Isthmus[4] mingle the sundered seas. The shores are astir and the waving woods, the din travels afar through the cities that lie between, and

  1. ↑ This description of road-making is confirmed by excavations, see extract from Bergier’s Histoire des grands chemins de l’empire Romain, in Pauly’s Real-Encycl. iv. 2. 2547. See also Smith’s Dict. Ant. s.v. “Via.”
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lime was used to cement the intermediate strata of the road, consisting of stones, broken brick and pottery. “sordido”: called by Vitruvius “tofus niger.”
  3. ↑ Various attempts were made to cut through the Isthmus by Demetrius of Macedon, Julius Caesar, Caligula, and Nero, but the gods seemed to be against the undertaking, “nefasto, ut omnium exitu patuit, incepto,” Plin. N.H. iv. 10.
  4. ↑ It was at Lechaeum, a port on the Isthmus, that Ino was worshipped.

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