41. Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian. xxiii. 3.
Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus the river is four
stadia, or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad
(Xenophon, Anabasis, 1. i. [c. 4, 1 l] p. 41, edit.
Hutchinson, with Foster's Observations, p.29, etc., in the
second volume of Spelman's translation). If the breadth of
the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma is no more than 130 yards
(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335), the enormous
difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the channel.