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.
[Illustration: A PERSIAN NOBLE
(After Bardon)]
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.
[Illustration: PHRYGIAN WEAPONS AND HELMET]
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.
[Illustration: PHRYGIAN WEAPONS AND HELMET]
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.
[Illustration: GREEK BATTERING RAM]
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.”
[Illustration]