542 ON THE SYRINX OF STRABO, 



Such was the original plan of this great work, which was executed 

 in the second year of the ninety-second olympiad, and in the twenty- 

 first year of the Peloponnesian war. (Dodwell.) Some alterations, we 

 are told by Strabo, lib. x., were made by the Chalcidians at the period 

 when Alexander marched into Asia, both in the fortifications of the 

 town and in those of the mole ; but in Strabo's time, or about four 

 hundred years afterwards, it appears, from the very short description 

 which he gives, to have been pretty much in the same state as when 

 it was first constructed, although the term yMfvga is substituted for 

 X^f-a in both passages, and the new and very unusual term cv^iyfc is 

 made use of to designate a part of the work which I shall now proceed 

 to consider. 



In the first place, then, we must admit that the term a-v^y^ evi- 

 dently applies to the navigable passage described by Diodorus, which 

 Strabo would not have passed over unnoticed. In the next place, 

 taking it in its usual acceptation, it conveys an idea of a circular or 

 cylindrical passage of some kind or other. 



The obvious result of this is, that the Syrinx must have been a sort 

 of tunnel, which is precisely the form which a civil engineer in these 

 days would have recommended for this purpose. 



Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that such must have been 

 the construction of this passage in the time of Strabo, when the use of 

 the arch was well known ; although it may be necessary, with a view 

 to establish this hypothesis, to point out in a practical way the mode 

 of its application. Let us suppose, then, that two towers are to be 

 built at the two opposite ends of such a mole, and that a navigable 

 passage is to be left between, while some mode of communication is 

 required above. It is evident that the foundation of the two walls 

 contiguous to the passage ought to be laid on an inverted arch, there 

 being no other effectual mode of giving it any stability. The com- 

 munication above might be effected by the means of a moveable or 

 an immoveable bridge. The Pvomans would undoubtedly in most 

 cases have chosen the latter, and when we consider the importance 

 which they attributed to this passage in a military point of view, it is 



