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.]