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ὁ Ἅλυς. The gates and guardhouse at the crossing of the Halys may be held to imply the bridge (mentioned in i. 75. 3), especially as H. here writes διεκπερᾶν, not διαπορθμεῦσαι as in § 4. The Halys is fordable in summer at Tchikin Agal and Eccobriga, but communications are cut by floods in winter (Ramsay, A. M. 256 n.), so a bridge would be necessary if the route was to be in constant use. Herodotus had no accurate information about the Halys apart from the Royal road, and clearly did not know that if the road (as he rightly states) crossed the Halys once between Ancyra and Pteria, it must of necessity do so again on its way to the Euphrates, either between Pteria and Caesarea Mazaca, or, on Kiepert's hypothesis (v. i.), at Sebasteia (Siwas). The distance along the Royal road between the Halys and the Euphrates is reckoned at 104 + 15 1/2 parasangs = 3,585 stades, which is far too great for anything like a direct road from the bridge on the Halys to Melitene (Malatia) or Samosata (Samsat). Kiepert therefore rightly argued that the road must have made a considerable circuit, but he seems to be wrong in declaring that his détour must have been to the North and in taking the road round from Tavium by Zela and Comana Pontica to Sebasteia, to meet a route from Sinope. To touch Cilicia the road must have curved southward and then run eastward along the Melas (Tokma Su) to Melitene. διξὰς πύλας. The geography of Herodotus is reduced to hopeless confusion if these be identified with the well-known Cilician gates (Xen. An. i. 2. 21) between Tyana and Tarsus. Ramsay (C. B. I. xiv n.) and Anderson (cf. inf.) hold Herodotus guilty of this confusion. But his Cilicia extended north of Taurus (iii. 90 n.), and his gates should be placed further east.
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