The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great

by Robert H. Fuller

THE GAP OF DEATH

Alexander listened to Joel's story and questioned him closely regarding the disposition of affairs in the city. He learned that supplies were running low and that already the garrison was on half rations. Joel assured him that the feeling of discouragement and despair was universal in the city.

"We will attack to-day," Alexander said to Clearchus, who stood waiting in a fever of anxiety. "If we can break the walls, Baal-Moloch will be cheated of his sacrifice, but Melkarth will have his fill."

The fleet put forth from both sides of the mole, the oars of the rowers flashing in the sun. The great towers on the end of the mole, which now extended to the wall of the city, were filled with men who showered arrows and javelins upon the garrison so as to protect the huge battering rams at work below. These engines consisted of heavy beams, one hundred feet long, ending in great rams' heads of bronze. They were suspended by chains from a framework that permitted them to swing freely. As many men as could grasp the short cords attached to the sides of a beam labored to keep it oscillating with a regular motion. With each downward swing, the bronze head, with its twisted horns, dashed against the wall. The impact ground the stones to powder, but the wall was so thick and so strongly built that its joints remained firm.

Alexander was reluctant to admit that the mole which he had constructed with so much expenditure of time and labor was useless, and he therefore kept the towers in action and the rams at work; but his real hope of taking the city now lay elsewhere. The wall on the seaward side, where no attack had been deemed possible, was less solid than toward the land. Tests made by floating rams had shown that a breach was practicable on the southwest and it was to this spot that the attack was directed.

The Cyprian ships hovered about the northern side of the city. Some threatened the mouth of the Sidonian Harbor, while others sent flights of arrows over the walls. The fortress was encircled by a menacing ring of vessels, which kept the attention of the garrison occupied, while Alexander prepared for the assault, which was to be made at a point where the masonry already showed cracks, and some of the stones had been pushed out of place.

Towed by quinqueremes, the floating forts that the Macedonians had built were brought slowly around to the southern wall. Some carried ballistæ and catapults and stores of darts and stones. Others had rams, scaling ladders, iron hooks, and siege implements of all kinds. All were provided with shields to protect the men from missiles from the walls.

One by one they swung into position and came to anchor. The catapults and ballistæ were placed two hundred yards from the wall, so as to afford space for the flight of their projectiles. The ships of war moved backward and forward, while the archers and slingers swept the towers and ramparts with a hissing hail of lead and steel.

Under cover of this protection, the rams and siege vessels pushed forward. Their crews made them fast to projections in the wall, and soon the regular throbbing crash of the rams was heard, pounding on the masonry. The vessels with the ladders and scaling implements lay waiting, with the bravest men in the army ready to spring to the assault as soon as a breach should be opened.

The July sun lay warm on the heaving sea, and the heat rose in shimmering waves from the wall. Around and within the city the shouting of men, the thudding of the rams, the creaking of the machines, and the crash of stones cast by the ballistæ filled the air.