works, which in many places still exist to testify to the greatness of
his character. Prominent among those must be placed the bridges
constructed along the great roads of Western China. Some of them are
still believed to be in perfect condition. No act of Kaotsou's reign
places him higher in the scale of sovereigns than the improvement of the
roads and the construction of those remarkable bridges. Kaotsou loved
splendor and sought to make his receptions and banquets imposing by
their brilliance. He drew up a special ceremonial which must have proved
a trying ordeal for his courtiers, and dire was the offence if it were
infringed in the smallest particular. He kept up festivities at
Singanfoo for several weeks, and on one of these occasions he exclaimed:
"To-day I feel I am emperor and perceive all the difference between a
subject and his master."
Kaotsou's attention was rudely summoned away from these trivialities by
the outbreak of revolts against his authority and by inroads on the part
of the Tartars. The latter were the more serious. The disturbances that
followed Hwangti's death were a fresh inducement to these clans to again
gather round a common head and prey upon the weakness of China, for
Kaotsou's authority was not yet recognized in many of the tributary
states which had been fain to admit the supremacy of the great Tsin
emperor. About this time the Hiongnou[45] Tartars were governed by two
chiefs in particular, one named Tonghou, the other Meha or Mehe. Of
these the former appears to have been instigated by a reckless ambition
or an overweening arrogance, and at first it seemed that the forbearance
of Meha would allow his pretensions[46] to pass unchallenged.
[Footnote 45: Probably the same race as the Huns.]
[Footnote 46: Meha had become chief of his clan by murdering his father,
Teou-man, who was on the point of ordering his son's assassination when
thus forestalled in his intention. Tonghou sent to demand from him a
favorite horse, which Meha sent him. His kinsmen advised him to refuse
compliance; but he replied: "What! Would you quarrel with your neighbors
for a horse?" Shortly afterward Tonghou sent to ask for one of the wives
of the former chief. This also Meha granted, saying: "Why should we
undertake a war for the sake of a woman?" It was only when Tonghou
menaced his possessions that Meha took up arms.]
Meha's successes followed rapidly upon each other. Issuing from the
desert, and marching in the direction of China, he wrested many fertile
districts from the feeble hands of those who held them; and while
establishing his personal authority on the banks of the Hoangho, his
lieutenants returned laden with plunder from expeditions into the rich
provinces of Shensi and Szchuen. He won back all the territory lost by
his ancestors to Hwangti and Moungtien, and he paved the way to greater
success by the siege and capture of the city of Maye, thus obtaining
possession of the key of the road to Tsinyang. Several of the border
chiefs and of the Emperor's lieutenants, dreading the punishment
allotted in China to want of success, went over to the Tartars, and took
service under Meha.
The Emperor, fully aroused to the gravity of the danger, assembled his
army, and placing himself at its head marched against the Tartars.
Encouraged by the result of several preliminary encounters, the Emperor
was eager to engage Meha's main army, and after some weeks' searching
and manoeuvring, the two forces halted in front of each other. Kaotsou,
imagining that victory was within his grasp, and believing the stories
brought to him by spies of the weakness of the Tartar army, resolved on
an immediate attack. He turned a deaf ear to the cautious advice of one
of his generals, who warned him that "in war we should never despise an
enemy," and marched in person at the head of his advance guard to find
the Tartars. Meha, who had been at all these pains to throw dust in the
Emperor's eyes and to conceal his true strength, no sooner saw how well
his stratagem had succeeded, and that Kaotsou was rushing into the trap
so elaborately laid for him, than by a skilful movement he cut off his
communications with the main body of his army, and, surrounding him with
an overwhelming force, compelled him to take refuge in the city of
Pingching in Shensi.
With a very short supply of provisions, and hopelessly outnumbered, it
looked as if the Chinese Emperor could not possibly escape the grasp of
the desert chief. In this strait one of his officers suggested as a last
chance that the most beautiful virgin in the town should be discovered,
and sent as a present to mollify the conqueror. Kaotsou seized at this
suggestion, as the drowning man will catch at a straw, and the story is
preserved, though her name has passed into oblivion, of how the young
Chinese girl entered into the plan and devoted all her wits to charming
the Tartar conqueror. She succeeded as much as their fondest hopes could
have led them to believe; and Meha permitted Kaotsou, after signing an
ignominious treaty, to leave his place of confinement and rejoin his
army, glad to welcome the return of the Emperor, yet without him
helpless to stir a hand to effect his release. Meha retired to his own
territory, well satisfied with the material results of the war and the
rich booty which had been obtained in the sack of Chinese cities, while
Kaotsou, like the ordinary type of an oriental ruler, vented his
discomfiture on his subordinates.
The closing acts of the war were the lavishing of rewards on the head of
the general to whose warnings he had paid no heed, and the execution of
the scouts who had been misled by the wiles of Meha.
The success which had attended this incursion and the spoil of war were
potent inducements to the Tartars to repeat the invasion. While Kaotsou
was meditating over the possibility of revenge, and considering schemes
for the better protection of his frontier, the Tartars, disregarding the
truce that had been concluded, retraced their steps, and pillaged the
border districts with impunity. In this year (B.C. 199) they were
carrying everything before them, and the Emperor, either unnerved by
recent disaster or appalled at the apparently irresistible energy of the
followers of Meha, remained apathetic in his palace. The representations
of his ministers and generals failed to rouse him from his stupor, and
the weapon to which he resorted was the abuse of his opponent, and not
his prompt chastisement. Meha was "a wicked and faithless man, who had
risen to power by the murder of his father, and one with whom oaths and
treaties carried no weight." In the mean while the Tartars were
continuing their victorious career. The capital itself could not be
pronounced safe from their assaults, or from the insult of their
presence.
In this crisis counsels of craft and dissimulation alone found favor in
the Emperor's cabinet. No voice was raised in support of the bold and
only true course of going forth to meet the national enemy. The
capitulation of Pingching had for the time destroyed the manhood of the
race, and Kaotsou held in esteem the advice of men widely different to
those who had placed him on the throne. Kaotsou opened fresh
negotiations with Meha, who concluded a treaty on condition of the
Emperor's daughter being given to him in marriage, and on the assumption
that he was an independent ruler. With these terms Kaotsou felt obliged
to comply, and thus for the first time this never-ceasing collision
between the tribes of the desert and the agriculturists of the plains of
China closed with the admitted triumph of the former. The contest was
soon to be renewed with different results, but the triumph of Meha was
beyond question.[47]
[Footnote 47: One historian had the courage to declare that "Never was
so great a shame inflicted on the Middle Kingdom, which then lost its
dignity and honor."]
The weakness thus shown against a foreign foe brought its own punishment
in domestic troubles. The palace became the scene of broils, plots, and
counterplots, and so badly did Kaotsou manage his affairs at this epoch
that one of his favorite generals raised the standard of revolt against
him through apparently a mere misunderstanding. In this instance Kaotsou
easily put down the rising, but others followed which, if not pregnant
with danger, were at the least extremely troublesome. The murder of
Hansin, to whose aid Kaotsou owed his elevation to the throne as much as
to any other, by order of the empress, during a reception at the palace,
shook confidence still more in the ruler, and many of his followers were
forced into open rebellion through dread of personal danger. What wonder
that, as he has said, "the very name of revolt inspired Kaotsou with
apprehension."
In B.C. 195 we find Kaotsou going out of his way to visit the tomb of
Confucius. Shortly after this event it became evident that he was
approaching his end. His eldest son Hiaohoei was proclaimed heir
apparent. Kaotsou died in the fifty-third year of his age, having
reigned as emperor during eight years. The close of his reign did not
bear out all the promise of its commencement; and the extent of his
authority was greatly curtailed by the disastrous effects of the war
with the Tartars and the subsequent revolts among his generals.
Despite these reverses there remains much in favor of his character. He
had performed his part in the consolidation of the Hans; it remained for
those who came after him to complete what he left half finished.
Under Hoeiti, the Tartar King Meha sent an envoy to the capital, but
either the form or the substance of his message enraged the
empress-mother, who ordered his execution. The two peoples were thus
again brought to the brink of war, but eventually the difference was
sunk for the time, and the Chinese chroniclers have represented that the
satisfactory turn in the question was due to Meha seeing the error of
his ways.[48] Not long afterward the Tartar King died, and was succeeded
by his son Lao Chang.
[Footnote 48: Meha's letter of excuse is thus given: "In the barbarous
country which I govern both virtue and the decencies of life are
unknown. I have been unable to free myself from them, and, therefore, I
blush. China has her wise men; that is a happiness which I envy. They
would have prevented my being wanting in the respect due to your rank."]
ALEXANDER REDUCES TYRE: LATER FOUNDS ALEXANDRIA
B.C. 332
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
(The master spirit who could sigh for more worlds to conquer was at this
time high in his dazzling flight. Alexander has always been considered
one of the most striking and picturesque characters of history. His
personality was pleasing, his endurance remarkable, and courage
dauntless. Educated by Aristotle, his keen mind was well trained. He was
skilled in horsemanship, and his control over the fiery Bucephalus,
untamable by others, has become a household tale in all lands. There
never was a more kingly prince.
A king at twenty, his career has been an object of wonder to succeeding
generations. He shot like a meteor across the sky of ancient
civilization. His military achievements were remarkable for quickness of
conception and rapidity of execution; his life was a progress from
conquest to conquest. Alexander's army, with its solid phalanx, its
darting cavalry, and light troops, had become irresistible. He possessed
Napoleon's ability to select good generals and to make the most of his
talents. In battle Alexander was entirely devoid of fear. After a
victory his chief thoughts were for the wounded. Like Napoleon, he also
possessed that personal equation of absolute popularity with his
soldiers. Their devotion to him was simply complete.
After Thebes came the invasion of Asia. The invincible Macedonian had
fought and won the battle of the Granicus. In this battle nearly all of
the Persian leaders were slain, and its result spread terror throughout
Persia. Halicarnassus was next reduced. The march of Alexander was ever
onward. In the citadel of Gordium he cut the "Gordian knot," and
prophecy marked him for the lord of Asia.
And now Darius marched to meet him, making a fatally bad choice of
battle-ground. Darius was totally defeated at the celebrated battle of
Issus, although he had anticipated a victory. After the Persian rout and
the flight of Darius, whose numbers counted for nothing before the
Macedonian's skill, Lindon welcomed the invaders, and Alexander
determined to take Tyre. This was accomplished after a siege, which was
attended with much cruelty.
The siege of Gaza followed, in which nearly all of the citizens
perished. In B.C. 332 Alexander began his expedition to Egypt. He
conciliated the natives by paying honors to their gods. In his progress
he was struck by the advantages of a certain site for a city, and
founded there the town which is now called Alexandria.)
All Phoenicia was subdued except Tyre, the capital city. This city was
justly entitled the "Queen of the Sea," that element bringing to it the
tribute of all nations. She boasted of having first invented navigation
and taught mankind the art of braving the winds and waves by the
assistance of a frail bark. The happy situation of Tyre, at the upper
end of the Mediterranean; the conveniency of its ports, which were both
safe and capacious; and the character of its inhabitants, who were
industrious, laborious, patient, and extremely courteous to strangers,
invited thither merchants from all parts of the globe; so that it might
be considered, not so much a city belonging to any particular nation, as
the common city of all nations and the centre of their commerce.
Alexander thought it necessary, both for his glory and his interest, to
take this city. The spring was now coming on. Tyre was at that time
seated on an island of the sea, about a quarter of a league from the
continent. It was surrounded by a strong wall, a hundred and fifty feet
high, which the waves of the sea washed; and the Carthaginians, a colony
from Tyre, a mighty people, and sovereigns of the ocean, promised to
come to the assistance of their parent State. Encouraged, therefore, by
these favorable circumstances, the Tyrians determined not to surrender,
but to hold out the place to the last extremity. This resolution,
however imprudent, was certainly magnanimous, but it was soon after
followed by an act which was as blamable as the other was praiseworthy.
Alexander was desirous of gaining the place rather by treaty than by
force of arms, and with this in view sent heralds into the town with
offers of peace; but the inhabitants were so far from listening to his
proposals, or endeavoring to avert his resentment by any kind of
concession, that they actually killed his ambassadors and threw their
bodies from the top of the walls into the sea. It is easy to imagine
what effect so shocking an outrage must produce in a mind like
Alexander's. He instantly resolved to besiege the place, and not to
desist until he had made himself master of it and razed it to the
ground.
As Tyre was divided from the continent by an arm of the sea, there was
necessity for filling up the intermediate space with a bank or pier,
before the place could be closely invested. This work, accordingly, was
immediately undertaken and in a great measure completed; when all the
wood, of which it was principally composed, was unexpectedly burned by
means of a fire-ship sent in by the enemy. The damage, however, was very
soon repaired, and the mole rendered more perfect than formerly, and
carried nearer to the town, when all of a sudden a furious tempest
arose, which, undermining the stonework that supported the wood, laid
the whole at once in the bottom of the sea.
Two such disasters, following so closely on the heels of each other,
would have cooled the ardor of any man except Alexander, but nothing
could daunt his invincible spirit, or make him relinquish an enterprise
he had once undertaken. He, therefore, resolved to prosecute the siege;
and in order to encourage his men to second his views, he took care to
inspire them with the belief that heaven was on their side and would
soon crown their labors with the wished-for success. At one time he gave
out that Apollo was about to abandon the Tyrians to their doom, and
that, to prevent his flight, they had bound him to his pedestal with a
golden chain; at another, he pretended that Hercules, the tutelar deity
of Macedon, had appeared to him, and, having opened prospects of the
most glorious kind, had invited him to proceed to take possession of
Tyre.
These favorable circumstances were announced by the augurs as
intimations from above; and every heart was in consequence cheered. The
soldiers, as if that moment arrived before the city, forgetting all the
toils they had undergone and the disappointments they had suffered,
began to raise a new mole, at which they worked incessantly.
To protect them from being annoyed by the ships of the enemy, Alexander
fitted out a fleet, with which he not only secured his own men, but
offered the Tyrians battle, which, however, they thought proper to
decline, and withdrew all their galleys into the harbor.
The besiegers, now allowed to proceed unmolested, went on with the work
with the utmost vigor, and in a little time completed it and brought it
close to the walls. A general attack was therefore resolved on, both by
sea and land, and with this in view the King, having manned his galleys
and joined them together with strong cables, ordered them to approach
the walls about midnight and attack the city with resolution. But just
as the assault was going to begin, a dreadful storm arose, which not
only shook the ships asunder, but even shattered them in a terrible
manner, so that they were all obliged to be towed toward the shore,
without having made the least impression on the city.
The Tyrians were elated with this gleam of good fortune; but that joy
was of short duration, for in a little time they received intelligence
from Carthage that they must expect no assistance from that quarter, as
the Carthaginians themselves were then overawed by a powerful army of
Syracusans, who had invaded their country. Reduced, therefore, to the
hard necessity of depending entirely upon their own strength and their
own resources, the Tyrians sent all their women and children to
Carthage, and prepared to encounter the very last extremities. For now
the enemy was attacking the place with greater spirit and activity than
ever. And, to do the Tyrians justice, it must be acknowledged that they
employed a number of methods of defence which, considering the rude
state of the art of war at that early period, were really astonishing.
They warded off the darts discharged from the ballisters against them,
by the assistance of turning wheels, which either broke them to pieces
or carried them another way. They deadened the violence of the stones
that were hurled at them, by setting up sails and curtains made of a
soft substance which easily gave way.
To annoy the ships which advanced against their walls, they fixed
grappling irons and scythes to joists or beams; then, straining their
catapultas--an enormous kind of crossbow--they laid those great pieces
of timber upon them instead of arrows, and shot them off on a sudden at
the enemy. These crushed some of their ships by their great weight, and,
by means of the hooks or hanging scythes, tore others to pieces. They
also had brazen shields, which they drew red-hot out of the fire; and
filling these with burning sand, hurled them in an instant from the top
of the wall upon the enemy.
There was nothing the Macedonians dreaded so much as this fatal
instrument; for the moment the burning sand got to the flesh through the
crevices of the armor, it penetrated to the very bone, and stuck so
close that there was no pulling it off; so that the soldiers, throwing
down their arms, and tearing their clothes to pieces, were in this
manner exposed, naked and defenceless, to the shot of the enemy.
Alexander, finding the resources and even the courage of the Tyrians
increased in proportion as the siege continued, resolved to make a last
effort, and attack them at once both by sea and land, in order, if
possible, to overwhelm them with the multiplicity of dangers to which
they would be thus exposed. With this view, having manned his galleys
with some of the bravest of his troops, he commanded them to advance
against the enemy's fleet, while he himself took his post at the head of
his men on the mole.
And now the attack began on all sides with irresistible and unremitting
fury. Wherever the battering-rams had beat down any part of the wall,
and the bridges were thrown out, instantly the argyraspides mounted the
breach with the utmost valor, being led on by Admetus, one of the
bravest officers in the army, who was killed by the thrust of a spear as
he was encouraging his soldiers.
The presence of the King, and the example he set, fired his troops with
unusual bravery. He himself ascended one of the towers on the mole,
which was of a prodigious height, and there was exposed to the greatest
dangers he had ever yet encountered; for being immediately known by his
insignia and the richness of his armor, he served as a mark for all the
arrows of the enemy. On this occasion he performed wonders, killing with
javelins several of those who defended the wall; then, advancing nearer
to them, he forced some with his sword, and others with his shield,
either into the city or the sea, the tower on which he fought almost
touching the wall.
He soon ascended the wall, followed by his principal officers, and
possessed himself of two towers and the space between them. The
battering-rams had already made several breaches; the fleet had forced
its way into the harbor; and some of the Macedonians had possessed
themselves of the towers which were abandoned. The Tyrians, seeing the
enemy masters of their rampart, retired toward an open place, called
Agenor, and there stood their ground; but Alexander, marching up with
his regiment of bodyguards, killed part of them and obliged the rest to
fly.
At the same time, Tyre being taken on that side which lay toward the
harbor, a general carnage of the citizens ensued, and none was spared,
except the few that fell into the hands of the Siclonians in Alexander's
army, who--considering the Tyrians as countrymen--granted them
protection and carried them privately on board their ships.
The number that was slaughtered on this occasion is almost incredible;
even after conquest, the victor's resentment did not subside. He ordered
no less than five thousand men, who were taken in the storming, to be
nailed to crosses along the shore. The number of prisoners amounted to
thirty thousand and were all sold as slaves in different parts of the
world. Thus fell Tyre, that had been for many ages the most flourishing
city in the world, and had spread the arts and commerce into the
remotest regions.
While Alexander was employed in the siege of Tyre he received a second
letter from Darius, in which that monarch treated him with greater
respect than before. He now gave him the title of king; he offered him
ten thousand talents as a ransom for his captive mother and queen; and
he promised him his daughter Statira in marriage, with all the country
he had conquered, as far as the river Euphrates, provided he would agree
to a peace. These terms were so advantageous that, when the King debated
upon them in council, Parmenio, one of his generals, could not help
observing that he would certainly accept of them were he Alexander. "And
so would I," replied the King, "were I Parmenio!" But deeming it
inconsistent with his dignity to listen to any proposals from a man whom
he had so lately overcome, he haughtily rejected them, and scorned to
accept of that as a favor which he already considered his own by
conquest.
From Tyre, Alexander marched to Jerusalem, fully determined to punish
that city for having refused to supply his army with provisions during
the siege; but his resentment was mollified by a deputation of the
citizens coming out to meet him, with their high priest, Taddua, before
them, dressed in white, and having a mitre on his head, on the front of
which the name of God was written. The moment the King perceived the
high priest, he advanced toward him with an air of the most profound
respect, bowed his body, adored the august name upon his front, and
saluted him who wore it with religious veneration.