Of
This Oppression There Passed Ten Years While The Causeway Was Made By
Which They Drew The Stones, Which Causeway
They built, and it is a
work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid; for the
Length of it is five furlongs and the breadth ten fathoms and the
height, where it is highest, eight fathoms, and it is made of stone
smoothed and with figures carved upon it. For this they said, the ten
years were spent, and for the underground he caused to be made as
sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither
a channel from the Nile. For the making of the pyramid itself there
passed a period of twenty years; and the pyramid is square, each side
measuring eight hundred feet, and the height of it is the same. It is
built of stone smoothed and fitted together in the most perfect
manner, not one of the stones being less than thirty feet in length.
This pyramid was made after the manner of steps which some called
"rows" and others "bases": and when they had first made it thus, they
raised the remaining stones with machines made of short pieces of
timber, raising them first from the ground to the first stage of the
steps, and when the stone got up to this it was placed upon another
machine standing on the first stage, and so from this it was drawn to
the second upon another machine; for as many as were the courses of
the steps, so many machines there were also, or perhaps they
transferred one and the same machine, made so as easily to be carried,
to each stage successively, in order that they might take up the
stones; for let it be told in both ways, according as it is reported.
However that may be the highest parts of it were finished first, and
afterwards they proceeded to finish that which came next to them, and
lastly they finished the parts of it near the ground and the lowest
ranges.
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