Harpalus or Harpalos ( el, ) is a name reported by modern historical books ( tertiary sources) as the engineer who built the

pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow- draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. ...

over the Hellespont (from

Abydos Abydos may refer to: *Abydos, a progressive metal side project of German singer Andy Kuntz * Abydos (Hellespont), an ancient city in Mysia, Asia Minor * Abydos (''Stargate''), name of a fictional planet in the '' Stargate'' science fiction universe ...

to Sestos) for Xerxes in 480 BC. The primary source

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known for ...

(7.34-36) gives no specific name, except the following information: The secondary source may have been some later writer, who may have invented a name in order to provide a name for this impressive engineering achievement, in the manner of

Mandrocles Mandrocles was an ancient Greek engineer from Samos who built a pontoon bridge over the Bosporus for King Darius I to conquer Thrace. Mandrocles dedicated a painting, depicting the bridging of the straits, to the goddess Hera in the Heraion of Sam ...

, recorded by Herodotus as bridging the Bosporus for

Darius I Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...

. The oldest and relevant source seems to be a work published in 1904 by Hermann Alexander Diels which he titled '' Laterculi Alexandrini'' ("Alexandrian lists"), out of a damaged 1st or 2nd-century BC

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

he found, which lists artists and scientists by their achievements. The tertiary sources report the following: ''One of Mandrocles' successors, not named by Herodotus (7.34-36), was Harpalos of Tenedos who, succeeding where Egyptian and Phoenician engineers had failed, built the bridge over the Hellespont'' (Hofstetter 1978, no. 130; on the bridge, see Hammond and Roseman 1996). ''It is important for a right estimate of Ionian science to remember the high development of engineering in these days. Mandrokles of Samos built the bridge over the Bosporos for King Dareios (Herod. iv. 88), and Harpalos of Tenedos bridged the Hellespont for Xerxes when the Egyptians and Phoenicians had failed in the attempt'' ( Diels, ''Laterculi Alexandrini'', Abh. der Berl. Akad., 1904, p. 8). Harpalus, ''a Macedonian contractor, who took on the bridging project'', according to Peter Green. ''The astronomer Harpalus supervised the construction of the bridges''. according to Hugh Pembroke Vowles.The quest for power from prehistoric times to the present da
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By Hugh P. Vowles, Margaret Winifred Pearce Vowles (1931)

References

{{authority control People of the Greco-Persian Wars Ancient Greek engineers Achaemenid Thrace