Very famous in particular was one, which is not the less credible because Arrian’s authors seem to have passed it over in silence: the invention of shields filled with heated sand, which they were made to discharge on the assailants, and which, penetrating between their armour and their skin, inflicted indescribable tortures. Still the means of attack kept growing on the resources of defence. Dejection began to spread within the walls; and there were some who proposed to renew a horrid rite, which had long fallen into disuse—the sacrifice of a boy of good family to Moloch. It does honour to the Tyrian government, that it did not either humour this bloody superstition, or give way to despair; it was policy perhaps to check all thoughts of capitulation rather than ferocity that induced it to execute its Macedonian prisoners on the top of the walls, and to cast their bodies, in the sight of the besiegers, into the sea; but it directed the energy of the people to better expedients. It made a vigorous attempt to surprise the Cypriote squadron stationed near the northern harbour, and would have gained a complete victory over it; but Alexander, having received timely notice of the sally, sailed round unobserved, turned the fortune of the day, and sunk or took most of the enemy’s ships. All hopes from offensive measures were crushed by this blow; the safety of the city now rested chiefly in the strength of its walls.
Even these, after several fruitless attempts had been made in other quarters, began to give way on the south side; and a breach was opened, which Alexander tried, but did not find immediately practicable. Three days after, however, when a calm favoured the approach of the vessels, he gave orders for a general attack. It was to be made on all sides at once, to distract the attention of the besieged; and the fleet was at the same time to sail up to both the harbours, in the hope that in the midst of the tumult it might force an entrance into one of them. But the main assault was to be directed against the breach that had been already formed. The vessels which bore the engines were first brought up to play upon it; and when it had been sufficiently widened, were followed by two galleys, with landing boards and the men who were to mount it. One was commanded by Admetus, and was filled with troops of the guard, and in this Alexander himself embarked. Admetus and his men were the first to effect a landing, animated by the immediate presence of their king, who, after he had paused awhile to observe and animate the exertions of his warriors, himself mounted the breach.
When the Macedonian had once gained a firm footing, the issue of the conflict did not long remain doubtful. Admetus indeed, who led the way, was slain; but Alexander soon made himself master of two towers and the intervening curtain, through which the troops from the other vessel poured in after him, and he then advanced along the walls to the royal palace, which stood on the highest ground, that he might descend from it with the greater ease into the heart of the city. The Tyrians, seeing the wall taken, abandoned their fortifications, and collected their forces in one of the public places, where they gallantly made head against their assailants. But in the meanwhile both the harbours had been forced, their ships sunk or driven ashore, and the besiegers landed to join their comrades in the city. It soon became a scene of unresisted carnage and plunder. The Macedonians, exasperated by the length and labours of the siege, which had lasted seven months, and by the execution of their comrades, spared none that fell into their hands. The king—whom the Greeks call Azemilcus—with the principal inhabitants, and some Carthaginian envoys who had been sent with the usual offerings to Melkarth, took refuge in his sanctuary: and these alone, according to Arrian, were exempted from the common lot of death or slavery. It was an act of clemency, by which the conqueror at the same time displayed his piety to the god. Of the rest, eight thousand perished in the first slaughter, and thirty thousand, including a number of foreign residents, were sold as slaves. But if we may believe Curtius, fifteen thousand were rescued by the Sidonians, who first hid them in their galleys, and afterwards transported them to Sidon—not, it must be presumed, without Alexander’s connivance or consent. It seems incredible, that he should have ordered two thousand of the prisoners to be crucified; though he might have inflicted such a punishment on those who had taken the leading part in the butchery of the Macedonians. But, after the king and the principal citizens had been spared, it is not easy to understand why any others should have suffered on this account.
So fell Tyre, the rich, and beautiful, and proud, in arts and arms the queen of merchant cities. The conqueror celebrated his victory with a solemn military and naval procession, sacrifice, and games, in honour of the tutelary god who had thus fulfilled his promise and, though after the labour of so many months, had at length brought him into his city. He dedicated the engine which had first shattered the wall, and the sacred galley, in the sanctuary of Melkarth.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[20] As Aristobulus related, according to Arrian. Droysen observes that the other version is much more appropriate to the character and destiny of the conqueror, and would have been more readily believed by the army. But, critically considered, this is a reason for preferring the account of Aristobulus, whom Droysen elsewhere, as if in dispraise, styles “the sober.”
