CHAPTER LII. ISSUS AND TYRE

Arsites had fled after the battle into Phrygia; but there, it was said, overpowered by grief and shame by the disaster, which he attributed to his own counsels, laid violent hands on himself. Alexander bestowed his satrapy on Calas; encouraged the barbarians, who had fled to the mountains, to return to their homes; and ordered the tribute to remain on its ancient footing. Parmenion was detached to take possession of the satrap’s residence Dascylium. The king himself, bending his march southward, advanced towards Sardis. The news of his victory produced such an effect in the capital of Lydia, that when he had come within eight or nine miles of it, Mithrines, the commander of the garrison, accompanied by the principal inhabitants, met him, with a peaceable surrender of the city, the citadel, and the treasure. He retained Mithrines on an honourable footing near his person, and committed the command of the citadel to Pausanias, an officer of his guard. To conciliate the Lydians, he restored their ancient laws; that is, abolished the restraints which the policy of the Persian government had imposed on them, when it crushed their rebellion after the first conquest: while, perhaps to make them more familiar with Greek usages, he ordered a temple to be built on the citadel to Olympian Zeus. A body of cavalry and light troops and the Argive contingent were left as a garrison.

Four days after, Alexander arrived at Ephesus. There too, as soon as the tidings of the battle arrived, a body of mercenaries who had been stationed there by Memnon took ship with Amyntas, son of Antiochus, a Macedonian emigrant, who had fled his country to avoid the effects of the king’s displeasure, or because he was conscious of a share in some of the plots formed against him. Ephesus was divided between an oligarchical and a democratical faction, which seem nearly to have balanced each other. The oligarchy had been sustained by the power of Persia: their adversaries therefore looked forward with hope to the impending invasion, and had probably received promises of support from Philip. Violent tumults had taken place, in which the oligarchs, aided by Memnon’s troops, had prevailed, forced many of their opponents to leave the city, threw down a statue of Philip which stood in the temple, committed other acts of sacrilege there, and broke open the tomb of Heropythes, a great popular leader, who had been buried in the market place. A complete reaction ensued on Alexander’s arrival: democracy was formally restored, the exiles returned to their homes, and the triumphant party became eager for revenge on their vanquished oppressors. Alexander interfered to prevent bloodshed, and forbade any proceedings to be instituted for the punishment of political offences. The city was permitted to expend the tribute which it had before paid to the Persian government on its new temple, which was not yet finished. At a later period he offered to defray the whole expense of the building, on condition that his own name should be inscribed on it as its founder--an offer which the Ephesians declined with ingenious flattery. Before his departure he celebrated a great sacrifice to the goddess, with a solemn procession of his whole army in battle array. By like measures, especially by the establishment of democracy, and remission of tribute, he endeavoured to gain the good-will of all the other Greek cities on the coast, which was of great importance to him at this juncture, while the naval power of Persia was still formidable.

In the meanwhile he had received offers of submission from Magnesia and Tralles, in the vale of the Mæander, and had sent Parmenion forward to take possession of them. He had also at first reason to hope that Miletus would be as quietly surrendered to him; for Hegesistratus, who commanded the garrison, had made him like offers by letter. But the approach of a Persian armament, which was on its way from Phœnicia, encouraged Hegesistratus to change his intention, and defend his post. Nicanor, however, Alexander’s admiral, got the start of the barbarians, and arrived with his fleet of 160 galleys at Lade, before they appeared: and Alexander forthwith secured the island, which commanded the entrance to the port of Miletus, with a detachment of four thousand men. The Persians, finding themselves shut out, came to anchor at Mycale. Their fleet amounted to four hundred sail. Yet, notwithstanding this great inequality, Parmenion advised the king to hazard a sea-fight. A victory, he thought, would be attended with the greatest advantages, while defeat would not make the state of his naval affairs much worse--since, as it was, the enemy were masters of the sea. An omen too, which he had observed, confirmed him in his opinion. Alexander pointed out to him that it might be otherwise interpreted, and that his arguments were not sounder than his rules of divination. The Macedonian fleet was inferior, not only in number, but in nautical skill and training to the Phœnician and Cyprian galleys. It would be mere foolhardiness to seek a battle under such disadvantages; and a defeat, far from leaving him in nearly the same condition as he now stood in, might involve consequences no less important and disastrous than a general insurrection in Greece. The eagle which had been seen to perch on the beach behind the royal galley, signified that he was destined to overcome the Persian navy by his operations on land.

Miletus was divided into two distinct cities by an inner wall, which appears to have been much stronger than the outer one; if indeed what was called the outer city was not a mere open suburb. Alexander had taken it by assault on his first arrival, and then prepared to besiege the other. The townsmen came to a compromise with the garrison, and by mutual consent they deputed one of the most eminent citizens to the king, with an offer of neutrality, which he rejected, bidding them prepare to sustain an immediate attack. His enginery soon made a breach in the wall, which his troops mounted before the eyes of the Persians, who were unable to relieve their friends; for, to cut off all chance of succour, Nicanor had moved up to the mouth of the inner harbour, and laid some galleys across it side by side, so as effectually to bar entrance or escape. The citizens and the garrison, when the besiegers began to pour in through the breach, fled toward the sea; some put off in boats, but found the harbour’s mouth closed before they reached it; about three hundred of the mercenaries swam to a rocky islet within the harbour, and prepared to defend themselves there, until Alexander, admiring their courage, permitted them to purchase their lives by entering into his service. The Persian fleet continued for some time moored at Mycale, in the hope of drawing the enemy into an action; but as it was forced to fetch its water from the mouth of the Mæander, Alexander ordered Philotas to proceed to the place, with a body of infantry and cavalry, and to hinder the crews from landing. The fleet was consequently obliged to go over to Samos for provisions: it returned shortly after, and attempted to surprise the Macedonians in the harbour; but having been foiled in this attempt, withdrew from the coast of Miletus.

Alexander now perceived that his fleet would be of little service to him, while the state of his finances was such that he could ill bear the cost of it. On the other hand, he hoped to shut out the Persians from all the ports of Asia, and thus to disable them from continuing their naval operations. He therefore resolved to dismiss his fleet, retaining only a small squadron, which included the Athenian galleys, for the transport of his besieging machines, and to confine his attention to the prosecution of the war on the southern coast.

HALICARNASSUS

His first object was the reduction of Halicarnassus, where the enemy had now collected almost all the strength which he had remaining in this quarter. Memnon, who after the battle of the Granicus sent his wife and children as pledges of his fidelity to Darius, and had been invested by him with supreme authority in the west of Asia, and with the command of all his naval forces, had been long making preparations for the defence of the place, where he himself, with the Persian Orontobates, satrap of Caria, a numerous garrison of Greeks and barbarians, awaited the invader’s approach. They were animated by the presence of two Athenians, Ephialtes and Thrasybulus, who had come to offer their services against the common enemy. The fleet too, lying at the mouth of the harbour, was capable of rendering good service during a siege. The city, built on heights which rise abruptly in the form of a theatre from the sea, was naturally strong, and had been elaborately fortified, both with walls and a ditch forty-five feet in width, and about half as many in depth. Alexander, on his march from Miletus, made himself master of all the towns that lay between that city and Halicarnassus; and on his entrance into Caria, he was met by Ada, the widow of Idrieus, who surrendered her fortress of Alinda to him, begged leave to adopt him as her son, and placed herself under his protection. He then advanced towards Halicarnassus, and encamped at about half a mile from the walls.

He began by filling up the ditch, so as to enable his engines and wooden towers to approach the walls. The besieged made many vigorous sallies for the purpose of setting fire to the machines, but were always repulsed, and sometimes with great loss. Once a mad attempt of two Macedonian soldiers, who, having challenged one another over their cups to a trial of valour, undertook to storm the citadel on the land side alone, brought on an engagement, which was near becoming general, and might have ended in the capture of the city. For two towers and the intervening wall had been battered down by the engines; but before advantage was taken of the breach, the besieged built another brick wall in the form of a crescent behind it. Twice they made a desperate attempt to destroy the engines which Alexander brought to play on this new wall--the second time, at the instigation of Ephialtes, with their whole force; but they were defeated with great slaughter, in which Ephialtes himself fell, and it was believed that Alexander might then have stormed the place, but was induced to spare it by the hope that it would soon surrender. In fact, Memnon and Orontobates now despaired of defending it much longer, and resolved to abandon it. In the dead of the night they set fire to a wooden tower, and to some of the houses and magazines near the wall, and while the conflagration spread, made their escape, and crossed over to Cos, where it seems they had previously deposited their treasures. The garrison took refuge, some in the citadels, some in Arconnesus. Alexander immediately entered the city, and checked the progress of the flames. But as soon as he had become master of it, he razed it to the ground. He did not however think it worth while to stay, until he had dislodged the enemy from their remaining strongholds; but having committed the province to Ada, he left her, with about three thousand foot and two hundred horse, under a Macedonian officer, to reduce them. He himself pursued his march along the south coast of Asia Minor, to make himself master of the ports which might harbour the Persian fleet.

But as winter was now approaching, he determined, before he left Caria, to send a part of his troops, who had lately married when he set out on his expedition, back to Macedonia, to pass the winter at home. He gave the command of them to three of his generals, who were themselves in the same case; directing them on their return to bring with them as many fresh troops as they could raise. The measure was politic, as well as gracious; for his army had been much weakened to supply so many garrisons as were required for the conquered cities; and nothing was more likely to promote the levies in Macedonia, than the presence of the victorious warriors, whose return attested at once his success and his liberality. Another officer was sent to collect all the troops he could in Peloponnesus. Parmenion was ordered to proceed with the greater part of the cavalry and the baggage to Sardis, and thence into Phrygia, where he himself, after he should have traversed the coast of Lycia and Pamphylia, designed to meet him in the spring.

In his march through Caria he met with a short resistance from the garrison of the strong fortress Hyparna; and turned aside to punish the insolence of the inhabitants of Marmora in Peræa. After he had crossed the Xanthus, he received the submission of most of the Lycian towns. Phaselis even presented him with a golden crown; and the motive which led it to pay him this honour may help to account for the ready submission of the other Lycians. The people of Phaselis had suffered much from the incursions of their neighbours, the Pisidian mountaineers, who had even taken up a fortified position in their territory, for the purpose of continual molestation. They hoped that Alexander would deliver them from this annoyance, and they were not disappointed.

He was still in the neighbourhood of Phaselis, when he was apprised of a plot which had been formed against his life, by his namesake, the son of Æropus, whom he had appointed to command the Thessalian cavalry in the place of Calas, the new satrap of the Hellespontine Phrygia. It appears that, notwithstanding this favour, the Lyncestian either could not forgive the king for the execution of his two brothers, or could not forget the ancient pretensions of his family to royal dignity. He had entered into a negotiation with the Persian court through the fugitive Amyntas, and Darius had sent down an agent named Asisines, to obtain a secret interview with him, and to offer, if he killed his sovereign, to raise him to the throne of Macedonia, or at least to aid him in the attempt to secure it, with a thousand talents. The Persian emissary had fallen into the hands of Parmenion, and revealed his business; and Parmenion had sent him to the king. Alexander held a council on the subject, and by its advice despatched orders to Parmenion to arrest the Lyncestian and keep him in custody.

Between Phaselis and the maritime plains of Pamphylia, the mountains which form the southern branch of Taurus descend abruptly on the coast, leaving only a narrow passage along the beach, and this never open but in calm weather, or during the prevalence of a northerly wind. The promontory was called Mount Climax. At the time when Alexander was about to resume his march eastward, the wind was blowing from the south, and the waves washed the foot of the cliffs. He therefore sent the main body of his army over the mountains to Perga, by a circuitous and difficult road, which however he had ordered to be previously cleared by his Thracian pioneers. But for himself he determined with a few followers to try the passage along the shore; danger and difficulty had a charm for him which he could scarcely resist. Perhaps the wind had already subsided; soon after it shifted to the north--a change in which he recognised a special interposition of the gods. Yet, according to Strabo’s authors, he found the water still nearly breast high, and had to wade through it for a whole day. As he advanced from Perga, he was met by an embassy from the neighbouring town of Aspendus, which lay a little further eastward near the mouth of the Eurymedon, offering to acknowledge his authority, but praying that they might not be compelled to receive a Macedonian garrison. This request he granted, requiring one hundred talents and yearly tribute, and exacting hostages for their performance. Then he began his march towards Phrygia.

His road led through the heart of Pisidia, where he was the more desirous of striking terror, as its fierce and lawless inhabitants, secure in their mountain barriers and almost impregnable fortresses, had constantly defied the power of the Persian government. Yet he could not spare the time which would have been necessary to reduce all its strongholds. Termessus, situated on a steep rock, commanding a narrow pass which led from Pisidia into Phrygia, appeared to him too strong to be attempted, though he had dislodged the barbarians from the position which they had taken up without the walls, and made himself master of the pass. But the resistance of Termessus procured for him offers of alliance from its enemy Selge, another of the principal cities, which proved very useful to him. He stormed Sagalassus, though besides its natural strength its inhabitants were accounted the most warlike of the Pisidians; and this success was followed by the submission of most of the smaller towns. He then advanced by the lake Ascania to Celænæ, where the citadel, on an almost inaccessible rock, was guarded by a garrison of one thousand Carians, and one hundred Greeks, placed there by the satrap of Phrygia. It however offered to surrender unless it should be relieved within sixty days; and Alexander thought it best to accept these conditions; and having left a body of fifteen hundred men to observe it, and appointed Antigonus, son of Philip, to the important satrapy of central Phrygia, he prosecuted his march to Gordium, where he had ordered Parmenion to meet him.

GORDIUM

Arrian does not expressly state the object of this movement, which, as Alexander designed next to make for the coast of Syria, involved an enormous circuit. It is hardly credible that he was deterred from advancing directly into Cilicia by the difficulty of passing through the mountain region (the Rugged Cilicia), which immediately follows Pamphylia. He probably thought it necessary to establish his authority in the central provinces, so far at least as to break off their relations with the Persian government, and thus to secure the Greek cities on the western coast from the attacks which might have been made on them from this quarter, if the peninsula, east of Lydia, had remained subject to Darius. The central situation of Gordium also afforded means of easier communication with Macedonia, which the movements of the Persian fleet in the Ægean rendered very desirable, while it enabled him to negotiate on a more advantageous footing with the satraps of the provinces on the Euxine, who, when they saw him so near, might apprehend an immediate invasion. Accordingly, it seems to have been from Gordium that he sent Hegelochus to the coast, with orders to equip another fleet to protect the islands which were threatened by the Persians.

Here he was rejoined by the troops he had sent to winter by their own hearths, accompanied by the new levies, 3000 Macedonian infantry and 650 horse, 300 from Macedonia, 200 from Thessaly, the rest from Elis. Here also he received an embassy from Athens, which came to request that he would release the Athenian prisoners who had been taken among the mercenaries in the battle of the Granicus, and had been sent to Macedonia. Alexander did not think it prudent, while he was on the eve of a decisive contest with Darius, to relax his severity towards the Greeks who took part with the barbarians, but he gave the Athenians leave to renew their application at a more seasonable juncture.

Gordium had been in very early times the seat of the Phrygian kings, and was supposed to have derived its name from Gordius, the father of the more celebrated Midas. In the citadel was preserved with religious veneration a wagon, in which, according to the tradition of the country, Midas with his father and mother entered the town, at a time when the people, who were distracted by civil discord, were holding an assembly. They had been informed by an oracle that a wagon should bring them a king who should compose their strife. The sudden appearance of Midas convinced them that he was the king destined for them; and when he had mounted the throne, he dedicated the wagon in the citadel, as a thank-offering to the king of the gods, who, before his birth, had sent an eagle to alight upon its yoke, while Gordius was ploughing, as a sign of the honour reserved for his race.

[Sidenote: [333 B.C.]]

This legend had given rise to a prophecy that whoever untied the knot of bark by which the yoke was fastened to the pole, must become lord of Asia. Alexander did not leave Gordium before he had proved that this prophecy related to himself. He went up to the citadel, and separated the yoke from the pole. Whether he loosened the knot by drawing out a peg,[20] or cut it with his sword, his own followers were not agreed. But all the spectators were convinced that he had legitimately fulfilled the prophecy, and a storm of thunder and lightning which took place the same night, removed every shadow of doubt on the subject (333).

He now resumed his march eastward, and at Ancyra received an embassy from Paphlagonia, promising obedience on the somewhat ambiguous condition that he should abstain from entering their country. The subjugation of this extensive and very mountainous region would have detained him much too long from the more important objects which he had in view, and he therefore contented himself with this show of submission, which at least heightened, while it proved, the terror inspired by his name, and annexed Paphlagonia to the satrapy of Calas. As he advanced through Cappadocia towards the passes of Taurus, he met with no resistance; and his authority was at least nominally acknowledged to a great distance beyond the Halys, so that he could appoint a satrap of Cappadocia. On his way he received tidings from Tarsus, that the satrap Arsames, having heard that he had passed the Gates, was about to quit the city, which at first he meant to defend, and, it was feared, would plunder it before his departure. Hereupon Alexander pushed forward with his cavalry and the lightest part of the infantry at full speed for Tarsus, and Arsames, whatever his intention may have been, fled, leaving the city unhurt, to join the army of Darius.

Alexander, on his arrival at Tarsus, while his blood was still violently heated by these extraordinary exertions, had been tempted to plunge into the clear and limpid waters of the Cydnus, which flowed through the city. This imprudence was generally supposed to have been the cause of a fever which seized him immediately after, and which soon became so threatening in its symptoms that most of his physicians despaired of his life. One however, an Acarnanian named Philippus, who stood high in his confidence, undertook to prepare a medicine which would relieve him. In the meanwhile, a letter was brought to the king from Parmenion, informing him of a report that Philippus had been bribed by Darius to poison him. Alexander, it is said, had the letter in his hand, when the physician came in with the draught, and, giving it to him, drank while he read--a theatrical scene, as Plutarch unsuspectingly observes, but one which would not have been invented but for such a character, and which Arrian was therefore induced, though doubtingly, to record. The remedy, or Alexander’s excellent constitution, prevailed over the disease; but it was long before he had regained sufficient strength to resume his march.

In the meanwhile, he sent Parmenion forward with about a third of the army, to occupy the nearest of the maritime passes leading out of Cilicia into Syria. He himself, when sufficiently recovered, proceeded westward with the rest of his forces to Anchialus, where he beheld the statue of its reputed founder Sardanapalus, the voluptuous king, who judged so differently from himself--as the Assyrian inscription on his monument and the figure itself attested--of the value and use of life. At Soli, where he arrived next, he found a strong leaning to the Persian interest, which induced him to place a garrison there, and afforded him a fair ground for demanding a contribution of two hundred talents. Yet it seems to have been only an oligarchical party that had favoured the Persians, and perhaps the penalty was levied on them alone; for he established a democratical government, and the garrison may have been needed for its security. Before he returned to Tarsus, he made an inroad with a division of his forces into the mountains of the rugged Cilicia, and in the course of seven days reduced their wild inhabitants by force or terror to submission. On his return to Soli, he received the agreeable intelligence that Orontobates had been defeated in a hard-fought battle by Ptolemy and Asander, and that the citadel of Halicarnassus, and the other places which he had retained on the coast of Caria, had fallen.

Darius had previously suffered a much greater loss in the death of Memnon, who was carried off by a sudden illness while engaged in the siege of Mytilene, which, after having made himself master of Chios through treachery, and of the rest of Lesbos, he had invested closely by sea and land. Alexander, before he left Soli, celebrated the victory of his generals and at the same time testified his gratitude for his own convalescence by a solemn sacrifice to Æsculapius, with a military procession, a torch race, and musical and gymnastic contests.

He then marched back to Tarsus, and, sending Philotas forward with the bulk of cavalry across the Aleian plain, himself took a more circuitous route along the coast through Magarsus to Mallus, a town which claimed the Argive hero Amphilochus, as its founder. On this ground, as himself descended from the Heraclids of Argos, he both healed its intestine disorders, and exempted it from the tribute which it had paid to the Persian government. At Mallus for the first time he heard of the approach of the great Persian army commanded by Darius in person.[b]

DARIUS MUSTERS A NEW HOST

If Alexander was a gainer in respect to his own operations by the death of the eminent Rhodian [Memnon], he was yet more a gainer by the change of policy which that event induced Darius to adopt. The Persian king resolved to renounce the defensive schemes of Memnon, and to take the offensive against the Macedonians on land. His troops, already summoned from the various parts of the empire, had partially arrived, and were still coming in. Their numbers became greater and greater, amounting at length to a vast and multitudinous host, the total of which is given by some as six hundred thousand men; by others as four hundred thousand infantry and one hundred thousand cavalry.

The spectacle of this showy and imposing mass, in every variety of arms, costume, and language, filled the mind of Darius with confidence; especially as there were among them between twenty thousand and thirty thousand Grecian mercenaries. The Persian courtiers, themselves elate and sanguine, stimulated and exaggerated the same feeling in the king himself, who became confirmed in his persuasion that his enemies could never resist him.

From Sogdiana, Bactria, and India, the contingents had not yet had time to arrive; but most of those between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea had come in--Persians, Medes, Armenians, Derbices, Barcanians, Hyrcanians, Cardaces, etc.; all of whom, mustered in the plains of Mesopotamia, are said to have been counted, like the troops of Xerxes in the plain of Doriscus, by paling off a space capable of containing exactly ten thousand men, and passing all the soldiers through it in succession. Neither Darius himself, nor any of those around him, had ever before seen so overwhelming a manifestation of the Persian imperial force. To an oriental eye, incapable of appreciating the real conditions of military preponderance--accustomed only to the gross and visible computation of numbers and physical strength--the king who marched forth at the head of such an army appeared like a god on earth, certain to trample down all before him just as most Greeks had conceived respecting Xerxes, and by stronger reason Xerxes respecting himself, a century and a half before. Because all this turned out a ruinous mistake the description of the feeling, given in Curtius and Diodorus, is often mistrusted as baseless rhetoric. Yet it is in reality the self-suggested illusion of untaught men, as opposed to trained and scientific judgment.

But though such was the persuasion of orientals, it found no response in the bosom of an intelligent Athenian. Among the Greeks now near Darius, was the Athenian exile Charidemus; who having incurred the implacable enmity of Alexander, had been forced to quit Athens after the Macedonian capture of Thebes, and had fled together with Ephialtes to the Persians. Darius, elate with the apparent omnipotence of his army under review, and hearing but one voice of devoted concurrence from the courtiers around him, asked the opinion of Charidemus, in full expectation of receiving an affirmative reply. So completely were the hopes of Charidemus bound up with the success of Darius, that he would not suppress his convictions, however unpalatable, at a moment when there was yet a possibility that they might prove useful. He replied (with the same frankness as Demaratus had once employed towards Xerxes), that the vast multitude now before him were unfit to cope with the comparatively small number of the invaders. He advised Darius to place no reliance on Asiatics, but to employ his immense treasures in subsidising an increased army of Grecian mercenaries. He tendered his own hearty services either to assist or to command. To Darius, what he said was alike surprising and offensive; in the Persian courtiers, it provoked intolerant wrath. Intoxicated as they all were with the spectacle of their immense muster, it seemed to them a combination of insult with absurdity, to pronounce Asiatics worthless as compared with Macedonians, and to teach the king that his empire could be defended by none but Greeks. They denounced Charidemus as a traitor who wished to acquire the king’s confidence in order to betray him to Alexander. Darius himself, stung with the reply, and still further exasperated by the clamours of his courtiers, seized with his own hands the girdle of Charidemus, and consigned him to the guards for execution. “You will discover too late,” exclaimed the Athenian, “the truth of what I have said. My avenger will soon be upon you.”

Filled as he now was with certain anticipations of success and glory, Darius resolved to assume in person the command of his army, and march down to overwhelm Alexander. From this moment, his land-army became the really important and aggressive force, with which he himself was to act. Herein we note his distinct abandonment of the plans of Memnon--the turning-point of his future fortune. He abandoned them, too, at the precise moment when they might have been most safely and completely executed. In the first place, there was the line of Mount Taurus, barring the entrance of Alexander into Cilicia; a line of defence nearly inexpugnable. Next, even if Alexander had succeeded in forcing this line and mastering Cilicia, there would yet remain the narrow road between Mount Amanus and the sea, called the Amanian Gates, and the Gates of Cilicia and Assyria--and after that, the passes over Mount Amanus itself--all indispensable for Alexander to pass through, and capable of being held, with proper precautions, against the strongest force of attack. A better opportunity, for executing the defensive part of Memnon’s scheme, could not present itself; and he himself must doubtless have reckoned that such advantages would not be thrown away.

The momentous change of policy, on the part of the Persian king, was manifested by the order which he sent to the fleet after receiving intelligence of the death of Memnon. Confirming the appointment of Pharnabazus (made provisionally by the dying Memnon) as admiral, he at the same time despatched Thymodes (son of Mentor and nephew of Memnon) to bring away from the fleet the Grecian mercenaries who served aboard, to be incorporated with the main Persian army. Here was a clear proof that the main stress of offensive operations was henceforward to be transferred from the sea to the land.

It is the more important to note such desertion of policy, on the part of Darius, as the critical turning-point in the Greco-Persian drama--because Arrian and the other historians leave it out of sight, and set before us little except secondary points in the case. Thus, for example, they condemn the imprudence of Darius, for coming to fight Alexander within the narrow space near Issus, instead of waiting for him on the spacious plains beyond Mount Amanus. Now, unquestionably, granting that a general battle was inevitable, this step augmented the chances in favour of the Macedonians. But it was a step upon which no material consequences turned; for the Persian army under Darius was hardly less unfit for a pitched battle in the open plain; as was afterwards proved at Arbela. The real imprudence--the neglect of the Memnonian warning--consisted in fighting the battle at all. Mountains and defiles were the real strength of the Persians, to be held as posts of defence against the invader.

DARIUS AT ISSUS

Darius had marched out of the interior his vast and miscellaneous host, stated at six hundred thousand men. His mother, his wife, his harem, his children, his personal attendants of every description, accompanied him, to witness what was anticipated as a certain triumph. All the apparatus of ostentation and luxury was provided in abundance, for the king and for his Persian grandees. The baggage was enormous: of gold and silver alone, we are told that there was enough to furnish load for six hundred mules and three hundred camels. A temporary bridge being thrown over the Euphrates, five days were required to enable the whole army to cross. Much of the treasure and baggage, however, was not allowed to follow the army to the vicinity of Mount Amanus, but was sent under a guard to Damascus in Syria.

At the head of such an overwhelming host, Darius was eager to bring on at once a general battle. It was not sufficient for him simply to keep back an enemy, whom, when once in presence, he calculated on crushing altogether. Accordingly, he had given no orders (as we have just seen) to defend the line of the Taurus; he had admitted Alexander unopposed into Cilicia, and he intended to let him enter in like manner through the remaining strong passes--first, the Gates of Cilicia and Syria, between Mount Amanus and the sea--next, the pass, now called Beylan, across Amanus itself. He both expected and wished that his enemy should come into the plain to fight, there to be trodden down by the countless horsemen of Persia.

But such anticipation was not at once realised. The movements of Alexander, hitherto so rapid and unremitting, seemed suspended. We have already noticed the dangerous fever which threatened his life, occasioning not only a long halt, but much uneasiness among the Macedonian army. All was doubtless reported to the Persians, with abundant exaggerations; and when Alexander, immediately after recovery, instead of marching forward towards them, turned away from them to subdue the western portion of Cilicia, this again was construed by Darius as an evidence of hesitation and fear. It is even asserted that Parmenion wished to await the attack of the Persians in Cilicia, and that Alexander at first consented to do so. At any rate, Darius, after a certain interval, contracted the persuasion, and was assured by his Asiatic councillors and courtiers, that the Macedonians, though audacious and triumphant against frontier satraps, now hung back intimidated by the approaching majesty and full muster of the empire, and that they would not stand to resist his attack. Under this impression Darius resolved upon an advance into Cilicia with all his army.

Thymodes indeed, and other Grecian advisers--together with the Macedonian exile Amyntas--deprecated his new resolution, entreating him to persevere in his original purpose. They pledged themselves that Alexander would come forth to attack him wherever he was, and that, too, speedily. They dwelt on the imprudence of fighting in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, where his numbers, and especially his vast cavalry, would be useless. Their advice, however, was not only disregarded by Darius, but denounced by the Persian councillors as traitorous. Even some of the Greeks in the camp shared, and transmitted in their letters to Athens, the blind confidence of the monarch. The order was forthwith given for the whole army to quit the plains of Syria and march across Mount Amanus into Cilicia. To cross, by any pass, over such a range as that of Mount Amanus, with a numerous army, heavy baggage, and ostentatious train (including all the suite necessary for the regal family), must have been a work of no inconsiderable time; and the only two passes over this mountain were, both of them, narrow and easily defensible. Darius followed the northernmost of the two, which brought him into the rear of the enemy.

Thus at the same time that the Macedonians were marching southward to cross Mount Amanus by the southern pass, and attack Darius in the plain, Darius was coming over into Cilicia by the northern pass to drive them before him back into Macedonia. Reaching Issus, seemingly about two days after they had left it, he became master of their sick and wounded left in the town. With odious brutality, his grandees impelled him to inflict upon these poor men either death or amputation of hands and arms. He then marched forward, along the same road by the shore of the gulf which had already been followed by Alexander, and encamped on the banks of the river Pinarus.

The fugitives from Issus hastened to inform Alexander, whom they overtook at Myriandrus. So astonished was he, that he refused to believe the news, until it had been confirmed by some officers whom he sent northward along the coast of the gulf in a small galley, and to whom the vast Persian multitude on the shore was distinctly visible. Then, assembling the chief officers, he communicated to them the near approach of the enemy, expatiating on the favourable auspices under which a battle would now take place. His address was hailed with acclamation by his hearers, who demanded only to be led against the enemy.

PREPARING FOR BATTLE

His distance from the Persian position may have been about eighteen miles. By an evening march, after supper, he reached at midnight the narrow defile (between Mount Amanus and the sea) called the Gates of Cilicia and Syria, through which he had marched two days before. Again master of that important position, he rested there the last portion of the night, and advanced forward at daybreak northward towards Darius. On approaching near to the river Pinarus (which flowed across the pass), he adopted his order of battle. On the extreme right he placed the hypaspists, or light division of hoplites; next (reckoning from right to left), five taxeis or divisions of the phalanx, under Cœnus, Perdiccas, Meleager, Ptolemy, and Amyntas. The breadth of plain between the mountains on the right, and the sea on the left, is said to have been not more than fourteen stadia, or somewhat more than one English mile and a half. From fear of being outflanked by the superior numbers of the Persians, he gave strict orders to Parmenion to keep close to the sea. His Macedonian cavalry, the companions, together with the Thessalians, were placed on his right flank; as were also the Agrianians, and the principal portion of the light infantry. The Peloponnesian and allied cavalry, with the Thracian and Cretan light infantry, were sent on the left flank to Parmenion.

Darius, informed that Alexander was approaching, resolved to fight where he was encamped, behind the river Pinarus. He, however, threw across the river a force of thirty thousand cavalry, and twenty thousand infantry, to insure the undisturbed formation of his main force behind the river. He composed his phalanx, or main line of battle, of ninety thousand hoplites; thirty thousand Greek hoplites in the centre, and thirty thousand Asiatics armed as hoplites (called Cardaces), on each side of these Greeks. These men--not distributed into separate divisions, but grouped in one body or multitude--filled the breadth between the mountains and the sea. On the mountains to his left, he placed a body of twenty thousand men, intended to act against the right flank and rear of Alexander. But for the great numerical mass of his vast host, he could find no room to act; accordingly they remained useless in the rear of his Greek and Asiatic hoplites; yet not formed into any body of reserve, or kept disposable for assisting in case of need. When his line was thoroughly formed, he recalled to the right bank of the Pinarus the thirty thousand cavalry and twenty thousand infantry, which he had sent across as a protecting force. A part of this cavalry were sent to his extreme left wing, but the mountain ground was found unsuitable for action, so that they were forced to cross to the right wing, where accordingly the great mass of the Persian cavalry became assembled. Darius himself in his chariot was in the centre of the line, behind the Grecian hoplites. In the front of his whole line ran the river or rivulet Pinarus; the banks of which, in many parts naturally steep, he obstructed in some places by embankments.

THE BATTLE OF ISSUS

As soon as Alexander, by the retirement of the Persian covering detachment, was enabled to perceive the final dispositions of Darius, he made some alteration in his own, transferring his Thessalian cavalry by a rear movement from his right to his left wing, and bringing forward the lancer-cavalry or sarrissophori, as well as the light infantry, Pæonians and archers, to the front of his right. The Agrianians, together with some cavalry and another body of archers, were detached from the general line to form an oblique front against the twenty thousand Persians posted on the hill to outflank him. As these twenty thousand men came near enough to threaten his flank, Alexander directed the Agrianians to attack them, and to drive them farther away on the hills.

Having thus formed his array, after giving the troops a certain halt after their march, he advanced at a very slow pace, anxious to maintain his own front even, and anticipating that the enemy might cross the Pinarus to meet him. But as they did not move, he continued his advance, preserving the uniformity of the front, until he arrived within bowshot, when he himself, at the head of his cavalry, hypaspists, and divisions of the phalanx on the right, accelerated his pace, crossed the river at a quick step, and fell upon the Cardaces or Asiatic hoplites on the Persian left. Unprepared for the suddenness and vehemence of this attack, these Cardaces scarcely resisted a moment, but gave way as soon as they came to close quarters, and fled, vigorously pressed by the Macedonian right. Darius, who was in his chariot in the centre, perceived that this untoward desertion exposed his person from the left flank. Seized with panic, he caused his chariot to be turned round, and fled with all speed among the foremost fugitives. He kept to his chariot as long as the ground permitted, but quitted it on reaching some rugged ravines, and mounted on horseback to make sure of escape; in such terror that he cast away his bow, his shield, and his regal mantle. He does not seem to have given a single order, nor to have made the smallest effort to repair a first misfortune. The flight of the king was the signal for all who observed it to flee also; so that the vast host in the rear were quickly to be seen trampling one another down, in their efforts to get through the difficult ground out of the reach of the enemy. Darius was himself not merely the centre of union for all the miscellaneous contingents composing the army, but also the sole commander; so that after his flight there was no one left to give any general order.

This great battle--we might rather say, that which ought to have been a great battle--was thus lost, through the giving way of the Asiatic hoplites on the Persian left, and the immediate flight of Darius within a few minutes after its commencement. But the centre and right of the Persians, not yet apprised of these misfortunes, behaved with gallantry. When Alexander made his rapid dash forward with the right, under his own immediate command, the phalanx in his left centre (which was under Craterus and Parmenon) either did not receive the same accelerating order, or found itself both retarded and disordered by greater steepness in the banks of the Pinarus. Here it was charged by the Grecian mercenaries, the best troops in the Persian service. The combat which took place was obstinate, and the Macedonian loss not inconsiderable; the general of division, Ptolemy, son of Seleucus, with 120 of the front-rank men or choice phalangites, being slain. But presently Alexander, having completed the rout on the enemy’s left, brought back his victorious troops from the pursuit, attacked the Grecian mercenaries in flank, and gave decisive superiority to their enemies. These Grecian mercenaries were beaten and forced to retire. On finding that Darius himself had fled, they got away from the field as well as they could, yet seemingly in good order. There is even reason to suppose that a part of them forced their way up the mountains or through the Macedonian line, and made their escape southward.

Meanwhile on the Persian right, towards the sea, the heavy-armed Persian cavalry had shown much bravery. They were bold enough to cross the Pinarus and vigorously to charge the Thessalians; with whom they maintained a close contest, until the news spread that Darius had disappeared, and that the left of the army was routed. They then turned their backs and fled, sustaining terrible damage from their enemies in the retreat.

The rout of the Persians being completed, Alexander began a vigorous pursuit. The destruction and slaughter of the fugitives were prodigious. Amidst so small a breadth of practicable ground, narrowed sometimes into a defile and broken by frequent watercourses, their vast numbers found no room, and trod one another down. As many perished in this way as by the sword of the conquerors; insomuch that Ptolemy (afterwards king of Egypt, the companion and historian of Alexander) recounts that he himself in the pursuit came to a ravine choked up with dead bodies, of which he made a bridge to pass over it. The pursuit was continued as long as the light of a November day allowed; but the battle had not begun till a late hour. The camp of Darius was taken, together with his mother, his wife, his sister, his infant son, and two daughters. His chariot, his shield, and his bow also fell into the power of the conquerors; and a sum of three thousand talents [£600,000 or $3,000,000] in money was found, though much of the treasure had been sent to Damascus. The total loss of the Persians is said to have amounted to ten thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot; among the slain moreover were several eminent Persian grandees: Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, who had commanded at the Granicus, and Sabaces, satrap of Egypt. Of the Macedonians we are told that 300 foot and 150 horse were killed. Alexander himself was slightly wounded in the thigh by a sword.

_Flight of Darius_

When Alexander returned at night from the pursuit, he found the Persian regal tent reserved for him. In an inner compartment of it he heard the tears and wailings of women. He was informed that the mourners were the mother and wife of Darius, who had learned that the bow and shield of Darius had been taken, and were giving loose to their grief under the belief that Darius himself was killed. Alexander immediately sent Leonnatus to assure them that Darius was still living, and to promise further that they should be allowed to preserve the regal title and state--his war against Darius being undertaken not from any feelings of hatred, but as a fair contest for the empire of Asia. Besides this anecdote, which depends on good authority, many others, uncertified or untrue, were recounted about his kind behaviour to these princesses; and Alexander himself, shortly after the battle, seems to have heard fictions about it, which he thought himself obliged to contradict in a letter. It is certain (from the extract now remaining of this letter) that he never saw, nor ever entertained the idea of seeing, the captive wife of Darius, said to be the most beautiful woman in Asia; moreover he even declined to hear encomiums upon her beauty.

How the vast host of fugitives got out of the narrow limits of Cilicia, or how many of them quitted that country by the same pass over Mount Amanus as that by which they had entered it--we cannot make out. It is probable that many, and Darius himself among the number, made their escape across the mountain by various subordinate roads and bypaths; which, though unfit for a regular army with baggage, would be found a welcome resource by scattered companies. Darius managed to get together four thousand of the fugitives, with whom he hastened to Thapsacus, and there recrossed the Euphrates. The only remnant of force, still in a position of defence after the battle, consisted of eight thousand of the Grecian mercenaries under Amyntas and Thymodes. These men, fighting their way out of Cilicia (seemingly towards the south, by or near Myriandrus), marched to Tripolis on the coast of Phœnicia, where they still found the same vessels in which they had themselves been brought from the armament of Lesbos. Seizing sufficient means of transport, and destroying the rest to prevent pursuit, they immediately crossed over to Cyprus, and from thence to Egypt.

With this exception, the enormous Persian host disappears with the battle of Issus. We hear of no attempt to rally or re-form, nor of any fresh Persian force afoot until two years afterwards. The booty acquired by the victors was immense, not merely in gold and silver, but also in captives for the slave-merchant. On the morrow of the battle, Alexander offered a solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving, with three altars erected on the banks of the Pinarus; while he at the same time buried the dead, consoled the wounded, and rewarded or complimented all who had distinguished themselves.

No victory recorded in history was ever more complete in itself, or more far-stretching in its consequences, than that of Issus. Not only was the Persian force destroyed or dispersed, but the efforts of Darius for recovery were paralysed by the capture of his family. Portions of the dissipated army of Issus may be traced, reappearing in different places for operations of detail, but we shall find no further resistance to Alexander, during almost two years, except from the brave freemen of two fortified cities. Everywhere an overwhelming sentiment of admiration and terror was spread abroad, towards the force, skill, or good fortune of Alexander, by whichever name it might be called--together with contempt for the real value of a Persian army, in spite of so much imposing pomp and numerical show; a contempt not new to intelligent Greeks, but now communicated even to vulgar minds by the recent unparalleled catastrophe.

Both as general and as soldier, indeed, the consummate excellence of Alexander stood conspicuous, not less than the signal deficiency of Darius. The fault in the latter was that of fighting the battle, not in an open plain, but in a narrow valley, whereby his superiority of number was rendered unprofitable. But this (as we have already observed) was only one among many mistakes, and by no means the most serious. The result would have been the same, had the battle been fought in the plains to the eastward of Mount Amanus. Superior numbers are of little avail on any ground, unless there be a general who knows how to make use of them; unless they be distributed into separate divisions ready to combine for offensive action on many points at once, or at any rate to lend support to each other in defence, so that a defeat of one fraction is not a defeat of the whole. The faith of Darius in simple multitude was altogether blind and childish; nay, that faith, though overweening beforehand, disappeared at once when he found his enemies did not run away, but faced him boldly--as was seen by his attitude on the banks of the Pinarus, where he stood to be attacked instead of executing his threat of treading down the handful opposed to him. But it was not merely as a general that Darius acted in such a manner as to render the loss of the battle certain. Had his dispositions been ever so skilful, his personal cowardice in quitting the field and thinking only of his own safety, would have sufficed to nullify their effect. Though the Persian grandees are generally conspicuous for personal courage, yet we shall find Darius hereafter again exhibiting the like melancholy timidity, and the like incompetence for using numbers with effect, at the battle of Arbela, though fought in a spacious plain chosen by himself.

FROM ISSUS TO TYRE

Happy was it for Memnon that he did not live to see the renunciation of his schemes, and the ruin consequent upon it! The fleet in the Ægean, which had been transferred at his death to Pharnabazus, though weakened by the loss of those mercenaries whom Darius had recalled to Issus, and disheartened by a serious defeat which the Persian Orontobates had received from the Macedonians in Caria, was nevertheless not inactive in trying to organise an anti-Macedonian manifestation in Greece. While Pharnabazus was at the island of Siphnos with his one hundred triremes, he was visited by the Lacedæmonian king Agis, who pressed him to embark for Peloponnesus as large a force as he could spare, to second a movement projected by the Spartans. But such aggressive plans were at once crushed by the terror-striking news of the battle of Issus. Apprehending a revolt in the island of Chios, as a result of this news, Pharnabazus immediately sailed thither with a large detachment. Agis, obtaining nothing more than a subsidy of thirty talents and a squadron of ten triremes, was obliged to renounce his projects in Peloponnesus, and to content himself with directing some operations in Crete, to be conducted by his brother Agesilaus; while he himself remained among the islands, and ultimately accompanied the Persian Autophradates to Halicarnassus. It appears, however, that he afterwards went to conduct the operations in Crete, and that he had considerable success in that island, bringing several Cretan towns to join the Persians.[c]

The spoil of Damascus was not the most important advantage which Alexander reaped from the battle of Issus. It averted a danger which, notwithstanding Memnon’s death, had continued to give him occasion for much uneasiness; for he was still threatened with a diversion in his rear--a general rising of the Greeks and an invasion of Macedonia--which might have interrupted, even if it did not finally defeat, his enterprise.

Thus then Alexander had nothing more to fear on this side for the present. But it was not the less his foremost object to guard against the recurrence of this danger, and to deprive the Persian government of all means of aiding the Greeks in their attempts for the recovery of their independence. He saw that if he once made himself master of Phœnicia and Egypt, the Persians would be deserted by the best part of their galleys, which were furnished by the Phœnician cities, and would be unable to repair the loss. His authority would then be undisputed in all the provinces of the empire west of the Euphrates.

Darius had continued his flight without intermission until he had crossed the river at Thapsacus, where he arrived with about four thousand fugitives, who had successively joined his train; and then first felt himself out of immediate peril. Amyntas [the Greek mercenary general who had escaped from Issus], it seems, conceived the bold project of making himself master of Egypt. Sabaces, the satrap of Egypt, had fallen in the battle; and Amyntas, pretending that he had a commission from Darius, gained admittance at Pelusium. He then dropped the mask, and calling on the Egyptians to shake off the hated yoke of Persia, marched against Memphis. Mazaces, the Persian commander of Memphis, was defeated, and forced to take shelter behind the walls. But the victors suffered themselves to be surprised by Mazaces, and Amyntas was slain, with almost all his men.

Darius indeed had the force of the greater part of his empire still entire, and at his command. The troops of the eastern satrapies, including some of the most warlike in his dominions, had already been summoned to the royal standard; and he might expect, in the course of a few months, to see himself at the head of a still more numerous host than he had commanded at Issus. It was perhaps partly with the view of gaining time, that he no sooner reached a place of safety, than he began to sound Alexander’s temper by overtures of negotiation. He sent two envoys to Alexander. He assumed the tone of remonstrance, as one who had suffered an unprovoked aggression. He was now reduced, by the chance of war, to make a request: such however as one king might becomingly address to another--that Alexander would restore his mother, wife, and children. He himself was willing to become Alexander’s friend and ally, and desired that he would send ministers with the two Persian envoys, to treat with him.

The Persian envoys had been instructed to urge the request contained in their master’s letter by word of mouth. Alexander sent Thersippus along with them, charged with a letter to Darius, but with orders to abstain from oral communications on the subject. The letter was a kind of manifesto, in which he vindicated the justice of his proceedings by various reasons, as good, at least, as the strong are usually able to find for attacking the weak. He began like the wolf in the fable. The ancestors of Darius had invaded Macedonia and Greece, and he had been appointed by the Greeks their general, and had come over to Asia, to avenge their wrongs and his own. Ochus had furnished succours to Perinthus and the Thracians against Philip. It was through the machinations of the Persian court that Philip had been murdered; and his death had been made a subject of boastful exultation in its public letters. Darius himself had been the accomplice of Bagoas in the murder of Arses, and had usurped the throne of Persia: he had endeavoured to excite the Greeks to war against Macedonia, and had offered subsidies to Sparta, and to other states, which indeed had been accepted only by Sparta; but his agents had succeeded in corrupting many private persons, and had been incessantly labouring to disturb the tranquillity of Greece. His invasion therefore had been undertaken on just grounds. But since the gods had crowned his arms with victory, none of those who had trusted themselves to his clemency had found reason to regret their choice. He therefore invited Darius himself to come to him, as to the lord of Asia. He might beforehand receive pledges of his personal safety, and might then ask with confidence for his mother, wife, and children, and for whatever else he could desire. In future, he must address Alexander as the King of Asia, in the style, not of an equal, but of a subject, or must expect to be treated as an enemy. If, however, he disputed his claim to sovereignty, let him wait for his coming, and try the event of another contest. He might rest assured that Alexander would seek him, wherever he might be found.

On his road to Phœnicia, Alexander had been met by Straton, son of the king of Aradus, Gerostratus, whose territory included Marathus and several other towns on the main. Gerostratus himself, with all the other Phœnician and Cypriote princes, was serving in the Persian fleet, under Autophradates. Yet Straton brought a golden crown to the conqueror, and surrendered all the cities in his father’s dominions into his hands. As he advanced from Marathus, Byblus capitulated to him, and Sidon, where every heart burned with hatred of Persia, hailed him as her deliverer. Thus he proceeded without resistance towards Tyre. And even from this great city he received a deputation on his way, composed of the most illustrious citizens, among whom was the king’s son, bringing a golden crown, and a present of provisions for the army, and announcing that the Tyrians had resolved to obey all his commands.

THE SIEGE OF TYRE

[Sidenote: [332 B.C.]]

It seems that the language in which this message was conveyed intimated something as to the limits of that obedience which the Tyrians were willing to pay. It was not meant that it should extend so far as totally to resign their independence. This Alexander probably understood, and nothing could satisfy him short of absolute submission, and full possession of so important a place. But he met the offers of the Tyrians, as if they had been made in the sense which he required; and bade the envoys apprise their fellow-citizens that it was his intention to cross over to their island, and offer a sacrifice to Melkarth, the Phœnician Hercules, whom he chose to consider as one with the hero of Argos and Thebes. This was perhaps the least offensive way of bringing the matter to an issue; and it obliged the Tyrians to speak their mind more plainly. They now informed him that in all other points he should find them ready to submit to his pleasure, but that they would not admit either a Persian or a Macedonian within their walls; and they begged that he would celebrate the sacrifice which he wished to offer in Old Tyre, which lay on the coast opposite to their island city, where their god had another, and probably a much more ancient, sanctuary.

Alexander indignantly dismissed their ambassadors, and called a council of his officers, in which he declared his intention of besieging Tyre, and explained the reasons which rendered this undertaking necessary, arduous as it was. He observed that it would be unsafe to invade Egypt, so long as the Persians commanded the sea, and that to advance into the interior against Darius, while Tyre remained neutral or vacillating, and while Cyprus and Egypt were in the enemy’s hands, would be to let the war be transferred to Greece, where Sparta was openly hostile, and Athens only withheld from the avowal of her enmity by fear. On the other hand the reduction of Tyre would be attended with the submission of all Phœnicia; and the Phœnician fleet, the strength of the Persian navy, would soon pass over to the power which possessed the cities by which it had been equipped, and to which the crews belonged. Cyprus would then speedily fall, and there would be no further obstacle to the conquest of Egypt. They might then set out for Babylon, leaving all secure on the side of Greece, and with the proud consciousness that they had already severed all the provinces west of the Euphrates from the Persian empire.

The motives which induced Alexander to undertake the siege of Tyre are more evident than those which led the Tyrians to defy his power, after so many of the other Phœnician cities had submitted to him. The main ground of their conduct seems to have been more in the nature of a commercial calculation of expediency. The issue of the contest between Alexander and Darius was still doubtful; notwithstanding his past success the Macedonian conqueror might meet the fate of the younger Cyrus in some future field of battle. In any case the Tyrians believed their city to be impregnable so long as they were superior at sea. It was thought necessary, either for the purpose of detaining the god, or of quieting the popular uneasiness, to adopt an expedient similar to that which many years before had been employed by the Ephesians in a like emergency--to fasten the statue of Apollo, who was denounced as a friend of Alexander, by a golden chain to the altar of Melkarth. On the other hand Alexander seems to have thought it prudent to raise the spirits of his troops by assurances of divine assistance, in an enterprise which appeared to surpass human ability. He too related that he had seen Hercules in a dream taking him by the hand, and leading him within the walls of his city--a sign, as Aristander interpreted it, of success, though in a Herculean labour.

An ordinary conqueror might indeed himself have needed such assurances to encourage him, when he was about to attack a place so prepared for defence as Tyre at this time was, both by nature and art. The island on which the city stood was separated from the main by a channel half a mile broad, through which, in rough weather, the sea rushed with great violence. This strait was indeed shallow on the side of the Phœnician coast, but near the island became three fathoms deep. The walls, which rose from the edge of the cliffs, were 150 feet high on the land side, and composed of huge blocks of stone, cemented with mortar. The city was abundantly stocked with provisions and military stores, contained a number of copious springs; was filled with an industrious and intelligent population, expert in all the arts of naval warfare, and possessed mechanics and engineers, not inferior, it seems, to any that were to be found in the Macedonian camp. Though the greater part of the Tyrian fleet was absent in the Persian service, there still remained a sufficient number of galleys of war, and of smaller craft, both for the defence of the harbours--for there were two, one on the north, the other on the south side of the island--and for the annoyance of the enemy.

Alexander had no naval force which he could immediately oppose to this. His plan was soon formed: he resolved to carry a causeway through the channel, and when it had reached the foot of the walls, to batter them from it with his engines. The real difficulty of the undertaking was not perceived until the dam had been carried halfway across the water. But as the depth increased, while the work itself became more and more laborious and difficult, it now came within reach of the missiles discharged from the top of the walls; and the Tyrian galleys, taking their station at a short distance, incessantly annoyed the workmen, who were not armed to sustain these attacks. Alexander however ordered two wooden towers erected both to shelter the workmen and repel the assailants.

The Tyrians now prepared a more formidable mode of attack. A horse transport was filled with dry twigs and other combustibles, over which they poured pitch and brimstone. In the forepart an additional space was enclosed, so as to form a huge basket for the reception of these materials, in the midst of which were fixed two masts, which at the ends of their yard-arms supported two cauldrons filled with an inflammable liquid. The stem was raised high above the water by means of ballast heaped near the stern. The besieged, having waited for a favourable breeze, towed the ship behind two galleys towards the mole, and when it came near set it on fire, and, seconded by the wind, ran it on the end of the mole between the towers. The flames soon caught them; but the conflagration did not reach its full height, until the masts gave way and discharged the contents of the cauldrons on the blazing pile. To render it the more effectual, the men on board the galleys from a convenient distance plied the towers with their arrows, so as to defeat every attempt that was made to extinguish the fire.

A shoal of boats now came off from the harbours filled with people, who soon tore up the piles, and set fire to all the machines which had not been overtaken by the flames of the burning ship. The ruin of the work which had cost so much time and labour was completed in a few hours. Alexander, however, was not disheartened; he gave orders that a new mole should be begun, of greater breadth, so as to be capable of receiving more towers, and that new engines should be constructed. But as he now became aware that, without some naval force to oppose to the Tyrians, he should find the difficulties of the siege insurmountable, he repaired at once in person to Sidon, with a detachment of light troops, to collect as many galleys as he could.

Gerostratus, king of Aradus, and Enylus of Byblus, as soon as they heard that he had become master of their cities, quitted the Persian fleet, with their squadrons, and with a part of the Sidonian galleys; so that Alexander was joined at Sidon by eighty sail of Phœnician ships. About the same time came in ten from Rhodes, as many from Lycia, three from Soli and Mallus, and his own victorious captain, Proteas, from Macedonia. And these were followed not long after by the Cypriote princes with 120 galleys. He had now an armament of nearly 250 sail at his orders. While it went through a course of training for a sea-fight, and while the machines were in preparation, he made an excursion, with some squadrons of horse and a body of light troops, into the range of Anti-Libanus, and having reduced the mountaineers to submission, within eleven days returned to Sidon, where he found a reinforcement of four thousand Greek soldiers, who had been brought by Cleander from Peloponnesus. He then set sail for Tyre in line of battle, himself, as on shore, commanding the right wing, and Craterus the left. The Tyrians, it seems, expected his approach and were prepared to meet him; when they saw the numbers which he brought with him, they gave up all thoughts of resistance, and only used their galleys to block up the mouths of their harbours. Alexander, when he came up, found the northern harbour too well secured to be attacked, though he sank three of the enemy’s galleys which were moored on the outside, and captured one which was consecrated to the tutelary god. The next day he stationed the Cypriotes under the command of Andromachus near the entrance of this harbour, and the Phœnicians near the other, in the same quarter where his own tent was pitched.

In the meanwhile the mole had been restored, and was actively carried forward; mechanics had been collected in great numbers from Phœnicia and Cyprus, and had constructed abundance of engines, which were planted, some on the mole, others on transports and on the heavier galleys. These vessels at first found the approach very much impeded by a bed of stones which the besieged had carried out into the sea from the foot of the cliffs; and the attempts which the Macedonians made to remove this obstacle were for some time thwarted by the dexterity and boldness of the Tyrian divers, who cut the cables of the ships which were anchored for the purpose of drawing up the stones. Chain cables were at length substituted, and the passage was then rapidly cleared by machines, which raised the stones out of their bed, and hurled them into the deep water. The walls were now assailed by the engines on every side, and the contest grew closer and hotter than it had ever been. Every contrivance that ingenuity quickened by fear could suggest was tried by the besieged to ward off these attacks.

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.”