By this last unsuccessful effort, the defensive force of Halikarnassus was broken. Memnon and Orontobates, satisfied that no longer defence of the town was practicable, took advantage of the night to set fire to their wooden projectile engines and towers, as well as to their magazines of arms, with the houses near the exterior wall, while they carried away the troops, stores, and inhabitants, partly to the citadel called Salmakis—partly to the neighboring islet called Arkonnesus—partly to the island of Kos.[228] Though thus evacuating the town, however, they still kept good garrisons well-provisioned in the two citadels belonging to it. The conflagration, stimulated by a strong wind, spread widely. It was only extinguished by the orders of Alexander, when he entered the town, and put to death all those whom he found with firebrands. He directed that the Halikarnassians found in the houses should be spared, but that the city itself should be demolished. He assigned the whole of Karia to Ada, as a principality, doubtless under condition of tribute. As the citadels still occupied by the enemy were strong enough to require a long siege, he did not think it necessary to remain in person for the purpose of reducing them; but surrounding them with a wall of blockade, he left Ptolemy and 3000 men to guard it.[229]
Having concluded the siege of Halikarnassus, Alexander sent back his artillery to Tralles, ordering Parmenio, with a large portion of the cavalry, the allied infantry, and the baggage waggons, to Sardis.
The ensuing winter months he employed in the conquest of Lykia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia. All this southern coast of Asia Minor is mountainous; the range of Mount Taurus descending nearly to the sea, so as to leave little or no intervening breadth of plain. In spite of great strength of situation, such was the terror of Alexander’s arms, that all the Lykian towns—Hyparna, Telmissus, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, and thirty others—submitted to him without a blow.[230] One alone among them, called Marmareis, resisted to desperation.[231] On reaching the territory called Milyas, the Phrygian frontier of Lykia, Alexander received the surrender of the Greek maritime city, Phasêlis. He assisted the Phaselites in destroying a mountain fort erected and garrisoned against them by the neighboring Pisidian mountaineers, and paid a public compliment to the sepulchre of their deceased townsman, the rhetorician Theodektes.[232]
After this brief halt at Phasêlis, Alexander directed his course to Pergê in Pamphylia. The ordinary mountain road, by which he sent most of his army, was so difficult as to require some leveling by Thracian light troops sent in advance for the purpose. But the king himself, with a select detachment, took a road more difficult still, under the mountains by the brink of the sea, called Klimax. When the wind blew from the south, this road was covered by such a depth of water as to be impracticable; for some time before he reached the spot, the wind had blown strong from the south—but as he came near, the special providence of the gods (so he and his friends conceived it) brought on a change to the north, so that the sea receded and left an available passage, though his soldiers had the water up to their waists.[233] From Pergê he marched on to Sidê, receiving on his way envoys from Aspendus, who offered to surrender their city, but deprecated the entrance of a garrison; which they were allowed to buy off promising fifty talents in money, together with the horses which they were bringing up as tribute for the Persian king. Having left a garrison at Sidê, he advanced onward to a strong place called Syllium, defended by brave natives with a body of mercenaries to aid them. These men held out, and even repulsed a first assault; which Alexander could not stay to repeat, being apprised that the Aspendians had refused to execute the conditions imposed, and had put their city in a state of defence. Returning rapidly, he constrained them to submission, and then marched back to Pergê; from whence he directed his course towards the greater Phrygia,[234] through the difficult mountains, and almost indomitable population, of Pisidia.
After remaining in the Pisidian mountains long enough to reduce several towns or strong posts, Alexander proceeded northward into Phrygia, passing by the salt lake called Askanius to the steep and impregnable fortress of Kelænæ, garrisoned by 1000 Karians, and 100 mercenary Greeks. These men, having no hope of relief from the Persians, offered to deliver up the fortress, unless such relief should arrive before the sixtieth day.[235] Alexander accepted the propositions, remained ten days at Kelænæ, and left there Antigonus (afterwards the most powerful among his successors) as satrap of Phrygia, with 1500 men. He then marched northward to Gordium on the river Sangarius, where Parmenio was directed to meet him, and where his winter-campaign was concluded.[236]
APPENDIX.
ON THE LENGTH OF THE MACEDONIAN SARISSA OR PIKE.
The statements here given about the length of the sarissa carried by the phalangite, are taken from Polybius, whose description is on all points both clear and consistent with itself. “The sarissa (he says) is sixteen cubits long, according to the original theory; and fourteen cubits as adapted to actual practice”—τὸ δὲ τῶν σαρισσῶν μέγεθός ἐστι, κατὰ μὲν τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὑπόθεσιν, ἑκκαίδεκα πηχῶν, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἁρμογὴν τὴν πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν, δεκατεσσάρων. Τούτων δὲ τοὺς τέσσαρας ἀφαιρεῖ τὸ μεταξὺ ταῖν χεροῖν διάστημα, καὶ τὸ κατόπιν σήκωμα τῆς προβολῆς (xviii. 12).
The difference here indicated by Polybius between the length in theory, and that in practice, may probably be understood to mean, that the phalangites, when in exercise, used pikes of the greater length; when on service, of the smaller: just as the Roman soldiers were trained in their exercises to use arms heavier than they employed against an enemy.