A Persian king called Xerxes (gzerk’sez) was trying to cross the Hellespont, also known as the Bosphorus. It’s a narrow bit of water known as the Dardenelles, north of Gallipoli. It’s near Byzantium.
Anyway, so this king has an army of over 1,000,000 guys and wants to cross the river. So what does he do? … Build a bridge by tying boats together. Pretty cool of itself, isn’t it?
When they had finished the bridge, but before the army could cross it, a storm came up and completely mangled the bridge. All that work for nothing.
Xerxes was so mad at the water (he thought there was some god in the water) that he ordered the water to be flogged with whips! So some of his guards went down to the water, read a sentence over it, then started beating it! (hmmm, wouldn’t that hurt it?).
But that wasn’t enough!!! The guards threw some ropes in to tie the sea gods up, then threw red hot pieces of metal into the water, to burn the water, as well as cutting it with knives and swords.
I’m guessing someone needs a serious reality check!