CHAPTER IV. PHŒNICIA UNDER THE PERSIANS
Although Tyre does not appear to have lost its independence in its wars with Nebuchadrezzar, it was impossible that it should endure a siege of thirteen years without great injury to its prosperity. At the commencement of the Babylonian war it was evidently at the head of the Phœnician states; the people of Sidon and Aradus furnished its fleet with mariners and soldiers; the artisans of Byblus wrought in its dockyards. But from this time the pre-eminence of the Tyrians is lost. Aahmes II dispossessed them of Cyprus, though a family of Tyrian origin seems to have acquired the sovereignty in Salamis, which they retained till deprived of it by Evagoras. We do not find any mention made of the Phœnician naval states, as forming a part of the alliance into which the Babylonians, Lydians, and Egyptians entered, for the purpose of resisting the danger which threatened them all from the rising power of Cyrus. But whether they were connected during this time with Babylon, or, as is more probable, with Egypt, whose power had revived under Aahmes II, they would be equally in opposition to the policy of Persia; and it was as a preparatory step towards obtaining possession of the seacoast, that Cyrus secured himself an ally in Palestine, by showing the Jews other marks of favour, and allowing them to rebuild Jerusalem, in doing which they availed themselves of the aid of Sidon and Tyre in felling timber on Lebanon. Without this security, it would have been very impolitic in Persia to allow the fortification of a place of such natural strength as Jerusalem.
During the whole of his reign we find no mention made of his employing the Phœnician navy in his enterprises, which indeed were exclusively military. Towards its close he unquestionably meditated an expedition against Egypt; but his attention was drawn off to the nomadic nations on his northeastern frontier, in warfare with whom he lost his life. Xenophon indeed attributes to him the conquest of Cyprus, Phœnicia, and Egypt, in his Cyropædia; but his assertion has not obtained credit. Cambyses, his son, almost immediately undertook an expedition against Egypt, in which he employed the naval forces of the Phœnicians. Both Cyprus and Phœnicia gave themselves up unresistingly to the power which was evidently destined to inherit the ascendency in Western Asia, previously possessed by Babylon. When the conquest of Egypt was effected, he wished to attack Carthage; but the Phœnicians refused, alleging the religious obligations which forbade them to take part in a war against their own descendants. Cambyses had no means of compelling them; he had no fleet of his own; they had given themselves up, by preference rather than necessity, to the Persians. The Cyprians had not the same motive as the Phœnicians for refusing to act against Carthage; but the strength of the naval armament lay in the Phœnician ships, and Cambyses desisted from his project.
[525-466 B.C.]
In the more perfect organisation, both of its revenues and its forces, which the Persian monarchy owed to Darius, the navy of Phœnicia became a regular and very important part of the public power. By its means Darius made himself master of the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Along with Palestine and Cyprus it formed the fifth of the twenty nomes into which his empire was divided, and they paid jointly a tribute of 350 talents—just half the money-tribute which was levied from Egypt. Although these nomes are called by the general name of satrapies, and had each a separate governor, it does not appear that the internal constitution of the several kingdoms was disturbed; at least, in Phœnicia and in Cyprus the native princes continued to reign.
The commercial prosperity of Tyre and Sidon remained unimpaired, except by the rivalry of their own colonies of Carthage and Cadiz; for the Persians, like the Turks and Tartars, never became themselves a maritime power. The rich traffic of Arabia and the East still passed through the hands of the Phœnicians, and their manufactories of purple and glass were in full activity. Throughout the long struggle between Greece and Persia, which began with the burning of Sardis, the Phœnicians constituted the naval strength of the Persian armaments. The Cilician and Egyptian troops, destined for the reduction of Cyprus, were conveyed to that island in Phœnician ships. In the conflict by sea and land which subsequently took place, the Phœnician fleet was defeated by that of the Ionian Greeks; but the Persians having been at the same time successful by land, the revolt was suppressed, and Cyprus, after a year’s independence, returned to its subjection. The Persian commanders proceeded from the conquest of Cyprus to attack the Ionian cities themselves. A naval force of 600 vessels was assembled for the reduction of Miletus, the city of Aristagoras, by whom the Ionian revolt had been instigated, among which the Phœnicians were conspicuous for their zeal and bravery. In the sea-fight off the island of Lade, opposite to Miletus, they defeated the Ionians, who were deficient in naval training and discipline, and weakened by the defection of the greater part of the Samians. The conquest of Miletus speedily followed; and the Phœnician fleet, having subdued the islands of Asiatic Greece, crossed over to the Thracian Chersonesus. Miltiades, afterwards the conqueror of Marathon, narrowly escaped capture by one of their vessels, and his son Metiochus fell into their hands. It was no doubt by means of the Phœnician fleet, as well as that of the Ionians, that the islands of the Ægean were reduced, and the land forces of Persia conveyed to Marathon, though no specific mention is made of them in the subsequent operations.
When Xerxes carried out the project of a renewed invasion of Greece, which Darius had been prevented by death from executing, we find the Phœnicians bearing a conspicuous part among the naval forces which he assembled for that purpose. To them, in conjunction with the Egyptians, was committed the construction of the bridges of boats, by which the Hellespont was passed. The Phœnicians were also engaged in the construction of the canal, by which Xerxes cut through the isthmus which joins Mount Athos to the mainland, thus avoiding the fate which had befallen the fleet of Mardonius. They alone had sufficient experience in works of this kind to make the sides of their excavation a gradual slope; the other nations who were employed in it dug perpendicularly down, and increased their own labour by the falling in of the sides. Before crossing the Hellespont, Xerxes mustered his troops near Abydos, and caused his naval forces to try their skill and speed against each other by a contest in the Straits, in which the Phœnicians of Sidon were victorious over the Greeks as well as over the other barbarians. They furnished to the armament which assembled at Doriscus and the mouth of the Hebrus, 300 ships; the Egyptians sending 200, and the people of Cyprus 150. The names of their several commanders, probably their kings, have been preserved by Herodotus; Tetranestus the son of Anysus the Sidonian; Mapen the son of Sirom the Tyrian; and Merbaal the son of Agbaal the Aradian.
[466-390 B.C.]
We do not hear again of the Phœnician navy, until the Athenians, who had been left predominant in Greece and at the head of her naval confederacy, transferred the war to Cyprus and the coast of Cilicia. When the Persian generals, Artabazus and Megabyzus, mustered their troops in Cilicia for the reconquest of Egypt, they marched through Syria and Phœnicia, gathering the naval forces of this latter country on their way. After the main body of the Athenians had surrendered in the island Prosopitis, a reinforcement of fifty triremes, which had sailed into the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, in ignorance of what had happened, was attacked by the Phœnician fleet and almost entirely destroyed. The Athenians being thus threatened with the loss of their ascendency in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Cimon, the conqueror at the Eurymedon, was sent with a fleet of two hundred triremes to occupy Cyprus. He attacked Citium, but died before it was reduced; his successor, Anaxicrates, hearing of the approach of a Phœnician and Cilician armament, sailed out to meet them, and defeated them off Salamis in Cyprus. Many of their ships were sunk, a hundred with their crews taken, and the remnant pursued to the coast of Phœnicia. This success, however, was not followed up by the Athenians, who returned almost immediately to their own country.
The Egyptians having revolted from Persia and set Amyrtæus [Amen-Rut] on the throne in the year 405, endeavoured to possess themselves of Phœnicia, the great source of the naval power of Persia; but their plan was frustrated by this return of the Phœnician fleet. We next find them mentioned (394 B.C.) as auxiliaries of Athens in the destruction of the naval superiority which Sparta had gained by the battle of Ægospotami. Persia, which had aided Sparta in the Peloponnesian war, faithful to its policy of distracting Greece by siding with the weaker party, and alarmed at the progress of Agesilaus in Asia Minor, raised by its emissaries a war in Greece, which occasioned the recall of the Spartan king. At the same time Pharnabazus collected a naval armament from Cyprus and Phœnicia to attack the Spartan fleet at Cnidus. The Athenian forces were commanded by Conon, and in the battle which ensued, the Spartans were defeated at sea with the loss of fifty triremes and many of the crews, who after swimming ashore were made prisoners by the land forces. The victorious fleets pursued their way to Greece, and being left by Pharnabazus under the command of Conon, assisted in rebuilding the walls of Athens.
From this time it appears probable that more intimate and permanent relations were established between Phœnicia, and Athens. Phœnicians settled there, and had their own places of worship and interment.
[390-350 B.C.]
The cities of Phœnicia were involved in the consequences of the war which arose between the Persians and Evagoras of Cyprus. Being forced into hostilities, he did not confine himself to the defence of his own kingdom, but reduced nearly the whole island, sent a fleet against Phœnicia, and took Tyre, according to Isocrates, by assault. In the incidental mention of Phœnician affairs which we thus gain from the Greek historians, Tyre appears as the predominant state, in naval strength, while Sidon was the most flourishing and wealthy, and, as being one of the residences of the kings of Persia, was more difficult to detach from its allegiance.
We next find Phœnicia engaged in the extensive revolt of the Persian provinces, which was encouraged by the successful resistance of the Egyptians under Nectanebo, the hostility of Sparta, and the disaffection of the Asiatic satraps. Nearly the whole maritime region from Egypt to Lycia, including Phœnicia and Syria, Cilicia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia, was in league to throw off the yoke of the Great King; Sparta aided them by a land force, sent to Egypt under Agesilaus, and the Athenian Chabrias commanded the fleet. Tachus, the king of Egypt, successor of Nectanebo I, advanced with an army into Palestine and began to reduce the strong places which were held by the Persians; but in the meantime disaffection had arisen among his subjects and the army, and he was compelled to abandon his kingdom and take refuge in Persia. Artaxerxes Mnemon died soon after, in the year 358 B.C. During the first part of the reign of his successor Ochus, Egypt, being successful in maintaining its independence against his feeble attempts for its reconquest, appears to have acquiesced in his possession of Phœnicia; but now Egypt was invited to take part in a revolt. The satrap and generals of Ochus [Artaxerxes III], who resided in the territory of Sidon, had treated its inhabitants with great insolence, and in a general assembly of the Phœnician cities held at Tripolis (352 B.C.), it was determined to renounce their submission to Persia. They began by destroying the royal residence and the stores of forage collected for the use of the cavalry, and put to death the Persians from whom they had received injuries. Having thus provoked to the utmost the hostility of Ochus, they raised a numerous fleet of triremes, hired foreign mercenaries, prepared arms and stores, and sent a message to Nectanebo inviting him to join them.
[350-345 B.C.]
Even the sluggish nature of Ochus was roused by these insults to his authority, and he prepared to take a terrible vengeance upon Phœnicia, and especially upon Sidon. He assembled a large force of infantry and cavalry at Babylon, with which (351 B.C.) he began his march towards the coast, commanding Belesys the satrap of Syria, and Mazæus the satrap of Cilicia, to unite their forces and invade Phœnicia. Four thousand Grecian mercenaries, however, whom Tennes the king of Sidon had received from Egypt, commanded by Mentor of Rhodes, sufficed along with the native troops to drive back both the satraps. Meanwhile Cyprus had followed the example of Phœnicia. The nine petty kings who governed an equal number of towns, in subordination to Persia, asserted their own independence. Evagoras, whom we have formerly known as tyrant of Salamis, had been assassinated soon after the termination of his war with Persia, but had left two sons, Pnytagoras and Evagoras. Pnytagoras, the elder, had been expelled by his younger brother; but the Persians had reinstated him, and given Evagoras a command in Asia. Idrieus, the prince of Caria, who had remained faithful to Persia amidst the general defection of the maritime states of Asia, sent a fleet of forty triremes to attack Salamis; Evagoras and the Athenian Phocion brought eight thousand mercenary foot-soldiers, and began the siege on the land side. The island was flourishing, as the result of several years of peace, and the hope of plunder drew adventurers from the opposite coasts of Syria and Cilicia, by whom the army of Evagoras and Phocion was soon swollen to double its former amount, so that dismay and apprehension prevailed not only in Salamis, but among the rulers of the minor states.
[345-333 B.C.]
While Ochus was on his march from Babylon, Tennes the king of Sidon, alarmed at the magnitude of the forces which were about to be brought against him, sent Thessalion, a confidential minister, to treat with the Persian king for the betrayal of the city when his army should appear before it, promising besides, his advice in the conduct of the expedition against Egypt, the localities of which he knew accurately. Ochus joyfully accepted the offer; but his pride was so much offended when Thessalion demanded, on behalf of Tennes, the pledge of the royal right hand, that he ordered him forthwith to be beheaded. An exclamation of Thessalion, that the king might do as he pleased, but that without the aid of Tennes his projects would fail, recalled him to a better mind, and he gave the pledge of his right hand,—the most sacred in the estimation of the Persians,—and proceeded on his march through Syria. The Sidonians had availed themselves of the king’s delay to make ample preparations for defence. They had collected a fleet of more than a hundred quinqueremes and triremes, fortified themselves with a wall and triple fosse, and carefully drilled their youth in martial exercises. But all was frustrated by the treachery of Tennes, and Mentor, the commander of the Egyptian mercenaries. Under the pretext of going to attend a general council of the Phœnician states, Tennes led one hundred of the most illustrious citizens of Sidon to the Persian camp, and betrayed them into the hands of Ochus, by whom they were put to death, as the alleged authors of the revolt. As he advanced towards the city, he was met by five hundred of the Sidonians with the branches of supplication in their hands. Before he gave an answer to their petition, he asked Tennes whether he was confident that he could place the city in his hands. Tennes replied that he could; and Ochus, who desired to have an opportunity of signal vengeance upon Sidon, which might strike terror into the other revolted states, not only refused the capitulation for which they supplicated, but caused them all to be put to death. It remained for the consummation of the treachery of Tennes to persuade the Egyptian mercenaries to admit the Persian troops within the walls.
The Sidonians had previously burnt their own fleet, that none might withdraw from the common danger; and now reduced to despair, they shut up themselves, their children and their wives in their houses, and set them on fire. Including slaves, forty thousand persons are said thus to have perished; and so large was the treasure buried in the ashes of the conflagration, that the king sold for many talents the right of extracting it. This tale of unexampled perfidy and cruelty terminated in a signal display of retributive justice. Tennes, having served the purposes of Ochus, was put to death by him, or, knowing that this fate was designed for him, attempted suicide; but wavering in his purpose, was killed by his wife, who immediately slew herself upon his body.[8] Retribution awaited Persia also. Sidon lost by this event her chief naval forces, but became again a flourishing city under kings of its own. The cruelty of Persia, however, was never forgotten; and when Alexander invaded Phœnicia, Sidon opened her gates to him. Cyprus was reduced soon after. Salamis was the last place which held out.
Ochus, who had at first favoured the claim of Evagoras, listened to the accusations of his enemies, and adopted the cause of Pnytagoras. Evagoras afterwards cleared himself from their charges, and received a government in Asia from the Persian king; but being guilty of malversation in his office, he escaped to Cyprus, where he was seized and put to death. Pnytagoras submitted to the Persians, and was confirmed in his sovereignty, and he held it to the time of Alexander, in whose service he engaged, commanding the fleet which besieged Tyre.
The Siege of Tyre
The conquest of Egypt, which soon followed that of Phœnicia, was the last rally of the Persian power, before its final struggle and overthrow. In the interval between the conquest of Phœnicia and the invasion of Asia by Alexander, Athens, the chief maritime state of Greece, was occupied with the protection of her own independence against the growing power of Macedonia, and Persia was left quietly to enjoy the command which she had acquired over the fleets of Cyprus, Phœnicia, and Egypt. Her interference in Grecian politics was confined to sending a force to aid the Perinthians in their resistance to Philip, and supporting, with her gold, that party in Athens, which, by opposing Macedonia, delayed the attack that had been long anticipated, when Greece should be united under a single head. Ochus, on his return from Egypt, gave himself up to the congenial vices of the Persian court, tyranny and luxury; but he had two able ministers, Mentor the Rhodian, who governed his western provinces, and Bagoas, the eunuch, the eastern. He had become odious to his subjects, and was killed by Bagoas (338 B.C.). Arses his youngest son, whom Bagoas raised to the throne, in the hope of ruling by his means, soon showed the purpose of avenging his father’s murder, and shared his fate in the third year of his reign. His children having been put to death, and the direct royal line thus become extinct, Darius, a great-nephew of Artaxerxes Mnemon, was placed on the throne, nearly at the same time (336 B.C.) that Alexander became king of Macedonia and master of Greece, whose forces he immediately prepared to employ for the invasion of Asia.
[333-332 B.C.]
The battle of the Granicus (334 B.C.) had given to Alexander the possession of Asia Minor; by that of Issus (333 B.C.) Darius was driven beyond the Euphrates, and the whole coast of Phœnicia was left open to the Macedonians. Alexander appointed Menon to the satrapy of Cœle-Syria, and himself marched southward along the coast. On his way he was met by Strato, the son of Gerostratus, the king of Aradus and the adjacent territory, who offered him a golden crown, and surrendered to him the island of Aradus, with Marathus and some other towns on the opposite coast. Gerostratus himself, with Enylus of Byblus and the other kings of the Phœnicians and Cyprians, was at this time at Chios, with Pharnabazus and Autophradates who commanded the Persian fleet. Rejecting the offer of alliance made him by Darius, Alexander continued his march, received the submission of Byblus, and occupied Sidon at the invitation of the inhabitants, who remembered the cruelties of Ochus. Strato their king, who had been placed in the sovereignty by the Persians, and was upheld by them, favoured the cause of Darius, and was probably at this time serving in the Persian fleet, with the contingent of Sidon. He was deposed by Alexander; and Hephæstion, to whom the choice of a successor was left, called to the throne Abdalonymus, a remote scion of the royal family, at that time following the occupation of gardener in the suburbs.
Azemilcus, the king of Tyre, was with Autophradates; but ambassadors delegated by the community, and consisting of his son and the most illustrious men of the state, met Alexander on his way, professing, according to Arrian, that they were ready to submit to his command. They probably hoped that, satisfied with this nominal submission, he would pass onward to Egypt, and that they should not be compromised with the Persians, if Darius regained the ascendency. There were obvious reasons, however, why Alexander should not be content with anything less than complete possession of Tyre. It would have been dangerous for him to attack Egypt, while the Persians had the command of the sea; still more dangerous to follow Darius into Upper Asia, leaving behind him Tyre doubtful, and Egypt and Cyprus hostile. While he marched against Babylon, the Persian fleet would reconquer the seacoast and return to Greece, where Lacedæmon was openly hostile, and Athens retained rather by fear than affection. Tyre once secured, the naval power of Phœnicia, the strongest arm of Persia, would be at his command; for the mariners and the sailors would quit her service as soon as they found that their country was occupied by the Greeks. Cyprus would follow the example of Phœnicia; the expedition against Egypt might be easily effected, and the Persians being cut off from the sea, the march against Babylon might be undertaken with safety, and the advantage of an augmented fame. As a cover to his design he requested permission to enter the island, and sacrifice to Melkarth [Hercules] the tutelary god of Tyre, and the progenitor of the Macedonian kings. The Tyrians were not imposed upon, and returned for answer that there was a temple of Melkarth in Palætyrus on the mainland, in which he was at liberty to sacrifice. He prepared therefore to possess himself of the island by force, and the Tyrians to defend themselves.
Probably, had the question of surrender been decided by the wishes of the upper classes, Tyre would have passed quietly into the hands of Alexander. Those who are in possession of honour and wealth are not disposed to put them to hazard for the sake of national independence; they are rather eager to gain merit by submission and co-operation. But in the minds of the common people there arises in such a crisis a passionate, unreasoning sentiment of patriotism, which prepares them to dare and endure everything for the sake of their country. The stubborn resistance of the Canaanites to the children of Israel, the self-devotion of the Sidonians, the desperate struggle of the Carthaginians when their city had been doomed to destruction by the Romans, the horrors of the last siege of Jerusalem, prove what fierce determination characterised the whole race to which the Phœnicians belonged. Perhaps a tradition still lived among the Tyrians, that the kings of Assyria and Babylon, in the days of their highest power, had been foiled in the attempt to possess themselves of their island city. Nor was success altogether hopeless, according to the calculation of probabilities. It might reasonably be expected that, instead of Darius wasting his time in fruitless offers, and not beginning to make preparations till Alexander had taken Tyre, a Persian force would erelong make its appearance in Syria, to interrupt the siege. The obstinate defence made by the Persian commander of Gaza shows what might have been the result had Persia been able to throw succours into Tyre. The boldness of the operation by which Alexander joined the island to the continent had no parallel in the practice of war and would have failed, notwithstanding his most strenuous exertions, had not the naval forces of Aradus and Sidon abandoned the cause of Phœnicia. Carthage, which was bound by ties of origin to Tyre, and had a common interest with her in preventing the naval preponderance of Greece in the Mediterranean, might be expected to give aid, and even in the event of defeat, afforded an asylum. At the moment when Alexander was about to begin the siege, a Carthaginian embassy arrived, bringing gifts to Melkarth, and encouraged the Tyrians to resist. No blockade could be formidable to a city which commanded the sea, and possessed ample wealth for the purchase of supplies. Had the Persian government displayed ordinary vigour, the delay of a seven months’ siege might have changed the history of the Eastern world.
Alexander perceived that his efforts would be vain as long as the Tyrians remained masters of the sea, and gave orders for the construction of new machines, and of a new mole of greater breadth, which, by inclining towards the southwest, instead of crossing the strait in a direct line, was less exposed to the action of the wind and current. While the necessary preparations were making, he himself went to Sidon to collect a fleet. The Sidonian triremes were with Autophradates, along with the ships of Aradus and Byblus; but their commanders, Gerostratus and Enylus, who had heard of the surrender of their respective cities, but not of the defeat of Alexander before Tyre, deserted the Persian cause, and at this critical moment brought their vessels into the harbour of Sidon. A fleet of eighty Phœnician ships was thus collected, which were joined by vessels from Rhodes, Soli, Mallus, and Lycia, and a penteconter from Macedonia.
Not long after, the kings of Cyprus, having heard of the defeat of Darius at Issus, and the occupation of Phœnicia by Alexander, anchored in the same harbour with 120 ships. The fate of Tyre was already decided. While these vessels were being fitted up for the peculiar service to which they were destined, Alexander with his cavalry and light troops made a rapid expedition of eleven days into Cœle-Syria, where he repelled the Arabs of the Desert, who had interrupted his soldiers in cutting down wood on Anti-Libanus, and made terms with the inhabitants of the country. Returning to Sidon, he found that Cleander had arrived from the Peloponnesus with 4000 Greek mercenaries, and having manned his ships with his bravest soldiers, in order to avoid those naval manœuvres in which the Tyrians were more skilful, and to fight hand to hand from the decks, he set sail for Tyre in order of battle, leading in person the right division of the fleet, and anchored in the northern roadstead opposite to the Sidonian harbour. In his absence the construction of the new mole had been proceeding rapidly, though not without obstacles. The Macedonians had thrown whole trees with their branches into the sea, and covered them with a layer of stones, on which other trees were again laid. The Tyrian divers, approaching the mole unseen, laid hold of the projecting branches, and dragging them out, brought down with them large portions of the superincumbent mass. In spite of these exertions, the mole was nearly completed.
Notwithstanding the proximity of Sidon, the Tyrians had not yet heard of the accession of the Cyprian and Phœnician fleets, and were dismayed at the sight of the large force under Alexander’s command. They renounced the intention of giving him battle, began to transport their children, wives, and aged men to Carthage, and blocked up the mouths of their harbours with a line of triremes ranged side by side. As the Tyrian fleet did not come out against him, he sailed towards the city; and finding it impossible to force his way into the Sidonian harbour, he attacked and sunk the three outermost of the triremes, and then anchored under the lee of the mole, which had again advanced nearly to the walls of the city. The next day the Cyprian fleet stationed itself off the Sidonian harbour, the Phœnician off the Egyptian, near that part of the mole on which Alexander’s own tent was pitched. The attack upon the walls was resumed, and every device for assault or defence known in ancient warfare was put in force on both sides.
Defeated in this way, the Tyrians resolved to attack the Cyprian fleet, and took their measures for the purpose with the utmost secrecy. They spread sails before the mouth of the harbour, so that their operations could not be overlooked; they chose for their attack the hour of noon, when the sailors were at their meal, or engaged in their other avocations, and when Alexander had retired to his tent, pitched on that side of the mole which was most remote from the Sidonian harbour. To avoid alarm they came out of port in single file, rowing gently and in silence, till they were near the enemy, when they plied their oars vigorously, and the celeustæ set up the customary shout of signal and exhortation. Alexander had remained that day a shorter time than usual in his tent, and speedily returned to the place where the fleet was stationed. The surprise had been complete; the Tyrians had found the Cyprian ships deserted, or hastily manned in the midst of confusion and alarm; they had already sunk the ships of Pnytagoras, Androcles, and Pasicrates, and were fast disabling the others and driving them on shore. His first object was to prevent any more of the Tyrian fleet from coming out of the harbour, for which purpose he directed his own ships, as fast as they could be got ready, to station themselves before its mouth, thus hindering both the egress of reinforcements, and the return of the others if they should be unsuccessful. He placed himself on board one of those which lay on the southern side of the mole, and sailed round the island to come upon the Tyrian fleet unawares from the north. This movement, though unseen by those who were fighting off the harbour, was perceived by the Tyrians on the walls, who called aloud to them to return, but were unheard amidst the uproar of the battle. Repeated signals were made, but they did not perceive the approach of Alexander’s fleet till they were close upon them. They then turned and fled towards the harbour; a few only were able to enter, the rest were intercepted, and either disabled or taken. The soldiers and crews for the most part saved themselves by swimming to the friendly shore which was near at hand.
This victory allowed the Macedonians to carry on their unobstructed operations against the wall. But its height and solidity opposite to the mole baffled their efforts to make a breach in it, and they were equally unsuccessful in an attack made at midnight by the floating batteries on the part near the Sidonian harbour. A storm had suddenly arisen; the quadriremes, which had been fastened together and covered with planks to afford footing to the soldiers, were torn asunder and dashed against each other, the men who were stationed on them being precipitated into the water. In the darkness and noise, signals could not be seen, nor the word of command heard. The soldiers overpowered the pilots, and compelled them to seek the shore, which they reached in confusion and with much damage. The Tyrians began a second wall within the first, that they might still have a defence, in the event of a breach being effected; but their fears were indicated by the awakening of superstition. It was a prevalent belief that the gods abandoned a city which was about to fall into the hands of an enemy. A citizen reported that he had seen in a dream Apollo preparing to desert Tyre. He was not one of their ancient divinities; but the Carthaginians had brought a statue of him from Syracuse, and had placed it at Tyre, where it had attracted the veneration of the people. To prevent the desertion of the god, they bound his statue by a golden chain to the altar of their native deity, Melkarth. There were some who would have propitiated Saturn, as the Greeks and Latins called Moloch, by the sacrifice of a child of noble birth, according to the immemorial custom of the Phœnicians in times of public distress and alarm; but the wiser counsel of the elder men prevailed. It was probably, however, at this time that the Tyrians, having taken some Macedonians who were on a voyage from Sidon, put them to death upon the walls, in view of their countrymen, and cast their bodies into the sea. If any reliance had been placed on aid from Carthage, it was dissipated by the arrival of an embassy, which informed them that none could be expected. The republic had been exhausted by its wars in Sicily, and had not long before concluded an humiliating peace with Timoleon. They could only promise the Tyrians an asylum for their wives and children, part of whom had been transported thither before the capture of the city.
The attack upon the walls was carried on with the greatest energy, and repelled by the use of all the arts of defensive warfare. To deaden the blows of the battering-ram, and the force of the stones hurled from the catapults, bags of leather filled with seaweed were suspended from the walls. Tyre as a naval city abounded in ingenious mechanicians, who devised new engines for its defence. They erected on the walls circular machines, the interior of which was filled with several layers of yielding materials. These were set in rapid motion, and the darts and other missiles which struck upon them were either blunted and turned aside by the force of their rotation; or, if they penetrated beyond the surface, were stopped by the soft substances within. The Macedonians raised towers upon the mole, which had now advanced to the island, equalling the wall in height, and by throwing bridges from them to the battlements, endeavoured to pass over into the city. The Tyrian mechanicians constructed long grappling-hooks, which they fastened to ropes, and, throwing them out to a distance, laid hold of the soldiers on the towers. If their bodies were caught, they were miserably mangled; if the hook fixed itself on their shields, they were compelled either to abandon them, and expose their undefended bodies; or if, from a feeling of military honour, they clung to them, they were dragged over the tower and precipitated to the ground. Others of the assailants met with the same fate, having been entangled in nets, which rendered them unable to use their hands. Masses of red-hot metal were thrown from the machines, which among the dense crowd never fell ineffectually. A new mode of annoyance was devised against those who attempted to scale the walls. Sand intensely heated in shields of brass and iron was poured out upon them from above, and, penetrating between the armour and the skin, inflicted such intolerable pain that the soldiers threw off their coats of mail, and were pierced by the arrows and lances from the wall. With long scythes fixed to the end of yard-arms, the Tyrians cut the ropes and thongs by which the battering-rams were worked. Towards the end of the day they sallied from the walls, armed with hatchets, and a deadly struggle took place on the bridges, which ended in the Macedonians being driven back. Diodorus and Curtius, who are supposed to follow Clitarchus the son of Dinon, a general of Alexander, represent him as meditating to abandon the siege and march on Egypt after this repulse. This is not probable in itself, since his whole enterprise must have failed had he left Tyre behind him, not only unconquered, but triumphant.
Death of Admetus
The next day but one being calm, he ordered the ships on which the battering-rams were planted to be brought up against the wall, in which they soon made a breach. They then drew off, and two other ships were brought up on which the bridges and storming parties were placed. Admetus commanded one of these, Cœnus the other, Alexander keeping himself in reserve with a body of his guards, to attack wherever an opening should be made. The triremes were directed at the same time to sail to both the harbours, that they might force an entrance, if the attention of the Tyrians should be absorbed by the main assault. The vessels which carried the machines for throwing darts, or whose decks were manned with archers, were commanded to sail round the island, and, approaching as near as possible to the walls, to distract the attention of the troops upon them by simultaneous attacks on many points. The conflict was short, when once the bridges were laid to the breach in the wall, and the Macedonian soldiers could advance over a firm and level surface. Admetus was the first who mounted; he was killed by a lance at the moment of his setting foot upon the wall, and died exhorting his soldiers to follow him. Alexander, with his guards, immediately entered and directed his march towards the palace, as the readiest access to the city. The Phœnician fleet had in the meantime burst the boom by which the Egyptian harbour was closed, and dismantled the Tyrian ships or driven them ashore. The Sidonian harbour had no such defence, and was easily entered by the Cyprian fleet. The city being thus occupied on all sides, the Tyrians assembled round the Agenorium, where they were attacked by Alexander and killed or put to flight. Many of the inhabitants shut themselves up in their houses and died by their own hands; others awaited their fate at the doors of their houses; many mounted to the roofs and thence flung down stones and whatever was at hand on the heads of the soldiery.
[332-323 B.C.]
The Macedonians had been provoked by their obstinate resistance, and enraged at the recent murder of some of their comrades, as before mentioned, and little mercy was shown. The city was burnt; eight thousand were killed, and the rest, with the exception of those to whom the Sidonians gave shelter on board their vessels, sold for slaves to the number of thirty thousand, including the mercenary troops. Two thousand are said to have been crucified, as a reprisal for the death of the Macedonian prisoners. The king and the chief magistrates, with the Carthaginian deputation, had taken refuge in the temple of Hercules, and their lives were spared. Alexander offered sacrifice to him and led a naval and military procession in his honour, accompanied with gymnastic games and a torch race. He consecrated also to Hercules the battering-ram which had made the first breach in the walls, and a Tyrian ship, sacred to the service of the god, which he had captured. And thus, after a siege of seven months, Tyre was taken in July of the year 332 B.C. Alexander replaced the population, which had been nearly exterminated, by colonists, of whom a considerable part were probably Carians, a nation closely allied to the Phœnicians.
The capture of Tyre took place in July, that of Gaza in October. The following winter (331 B.C.) was occupied by Alexander in Egypt, partly in laying the foundation of Alexandria, which was destined to become the great commercial rival of the Phœnician cities. Having visited the oracle of Ammon, he returned in the ensuing spring to Tyre, where his fleet was assembled, sacrificed again to Hercules, detached one hundred Phœnician and Cyprian ships to the Peloponnesus, and appointed Cœranus as collector of the tribute of Phœnicia.
After the battle of Arbela, Alexander incorporated Syria, Phœnicia, and Cilicia in one province, of which he gave the command to Menes. He had broken the power of Tyre, but the commercial activity and maritime enterprise of Phœnicia remained unimpaired. The Phœnicians followed his army on the march to India for the purposes of traffic, and loaded their beasts of burden on their return through the desert of Gedrosia with the gum of the myrrh and the nard, which it yielded in such abundance as to scent the whole region with the fragrance which was diffused, as the army in its march crushed them under foot. The Phœnicians are mentioned first, along with the Cyprians, Carians, and Egyptians, as composing the crews of the ships which were to sail down the Hydaspes to the Indian Ocean and thence to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Tigris. After his return to Babylon, he commanded forty-seven Phœnician vessels of various rates to be constructed and then taken to pieces, conveyed overland to Thapsacus on the Euphrates, and put together again that they might descend the river to Babylon. They were manned from the Phœnicians engaged in the fishery of purple, and other seafaring people from the coast; and wherever in Syria or Palestine any one could be found possessed of nautical skill, if he were a freeman he was enlisted, if a slave purchased. It was one of his vast projects to colonise by their means the islands in the Persian Gulf and its seacoast—a region not less fertile, says Arrian, than Phœnicia itself. His views of conquest extended to the whole Arabian peninsula—a country whose marshes, he was told, yielded cassia; its trees, myrrh and frankincense; and its shrubs, cinnamon. This scheme, with others still more gigantic, was rendered abortive by his death at Babylon in 323 B.C.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[8] [Other authorities attribute this end to Tennes’ father, Strato, and its cause to the failure of an alliance with Tachus of Egypt against the Persians.]
