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.