SYPHAX SQUARES HIS ACCOUNT
King Azemilcus stood at a window of his chamber, with the aged
chancellor at his side, looking out across the parapet of the wall.
They were alone in the room, for the king had ordered his guard to
await his commands in an outer apartment. The window opened directly
upon the top of the wall, to which the royal palace was joined. Often
during his long reign had the old king stood there, revolving his
schemes in his cunning brain, while the salt breeze cooled his temples.
Beneath his feet the stones trembled with the shock of the great
battering rams that were enlarging the breach in the wall west of the
palace. In his ears sounded the tumult of the attack upon the two
harbors, where the Macedonian triremes were seeking to break the
barriers of chains. He saw the Tyrian soldiers upon the battlements,
fighting against hope, with the valor of desperation.
The roar of falling masonry told him that the rams had done their work.
The breach had become a wide gap, extending beyond the ends of the
inner wall that had been built to block the assault. The vessels lying
in wait drew nearer. Flights of arrows and volleys of stones, great
and small, swept the defences. Troop-ships, provided with drawbridges
at their prows, closed in at the breach. The bridges fell, and streams
of men in armor began to flow across them. They gained the breach and
held it. They scaled the slope of fallen blocks and reached the top of
the wall. The Tyrians were forced backward or hurled into the sea.
"That must be Alexander," the king remarked, noting the irresistible
vigor of the assault.
"Yes," the chancellor replied, "those are his plumes."
Alexander indeed was leading the charge along the wall toward the
palace, fighting in the forefront as his custom was, while the
shield-bearing guards pressed forward where he led. Their triumphant
voices shouted his name. At one of the towers upon the wall, between
the breach and the palace, the Tyrians made a stand, seeking to check
the advance of their foes. The Macedonians hunted them out and drove
them to the next tower. The battle raged in mid-air, and the bodies of
the slain fell either into the sea on one side or into the streets of
the city on the other.
"They will enter here," Azemilcus said. "I think it is time to go."
"It is time!" the chancellor echoed, gazing upon the slaughter like a
man under the spell of a horrible fascination.
The king led the way into the large hall where the guard was stationed.
It consisted of a company of a hundred men under the command of a young
captain whose bronzed face and steady gaze showed that he was a veteran
in service despite his youth. He had been pacing backward and forward
before his men, who stood at attention along the wall. At sight of
Azemilcus he paused and saluted. The old king placed a thin hand upon
his shoulder.
"I am going to the Temple of Melkarth," he said. "Escort me thither."
The young man shook off the royal hand as though he felt contaminated
by its touch.
"Does your Majesty really mean to seek refuge with the Alexandrine?" he
asked indignantly.
"Yes," the king replied, "and I command you to come with me."
"Then I refuse!" the soldier exclaimed. "I have two brothers yonder on
the wall, if they be still alive. The Macedonians will try to enter
the palace, and if they succeed, the city is lost. Go you to
Melkarth's temple if you will; but you go alone. We remain here."
Azemilcus looked at the handsome face, flushed with anger, and his
inscrutable smile played about his lips.
"Thy father was my friend, and I have loved thee," he said. "I would
save thee if I could, but youth is hot and hasty; have thy will if thou
must."
He began to descend the broad staircase, followed by the trembling
chancellor.
"There goes Tyre!" the young captain cried bitterly, "selfish and
treacherous to the last. To the windows! We may yet save him
honorably, though he does not deserve it."
They reached the seaward side of the palace in time to receive the
remnants of the Tyrian companies that had vainly striven to defend the
wall. The captain's brothers were not among the fugitives.
It had seemed to the young officer that the entrances to the palace
from the wall might be held by a few men against any force that could
be brought up; but it was not within human power to resist the onrush
of the Macedonians. The captain was slain by Ptolemy; half his men
fell with him, and the others fled down through the palace to the
streets with the Macedonians at their heels.
The noise of the battle spread from the palace through the city. There
was the clash of steel and the hoarse shouting of men at barricades;
screams of women in fear and sharp cries of command mingled with the
trampling of many feet. Save for the obstinate guard, the palace had
been left unprotected by the crafty old king, who was awaiting his
conqueror in the sanctuary of Melkarth's temple. Alexander led the way
into the city with Hephæstion and Philotas. Ptolemy, Perdiccas,
Clitus, Peithon, Glaucias, Meleager, Polysperchon, and a score more of
his Companions and captains swept after him, heading the scarred
veterans of Philip's wars,--phalangites, archers and javelin throwers,
Thessalian cavalry riders, and heavy-armed mercenaries.
Then in the city of Tyre, whose name for centuries had been a synonym
for power and pride, began a slaughter which lasted until nightfall.
Alexander ordered that the Israelites should not be molested and that
none should enter with violence the Temple of Melkarth; but he did not
seek to forbid his followers from taking revenge for the rigors and
hardships of the long siege.
At first the Tyrians fought desperately from street to street and from
square to square, falling back from one barrier to another; but this
resistance served only to whet the rage that drove the Macedonians on.
Fresh troops constantly landed from the fleet and poured in through the
palace. The breach in the wall became a gateway. The pitiless
squadrons hunted the defenders from lane and housetop, cutting them to
pieces.
In the Sidonian Harbor, seven ships were hastily manned, the chains
were let down, and the crews made a dash for the open sea. They were
snapped up by the Cretan vessels which lay in wait beyond the
breakwater. Three of them were sunk, and the rest were forced to
surrender.
In the house of Phradates the terrified slaves locked and barred the
doors by direction of Mena. The master was fighting on the walls.
More than once parties of Macedonian soldiers demanded that the gates
be opened, but when no response was given, thinking perhaps that the
house was deserted and tempted by easier spoil, they passed on. At
last came a Tyrian cry for admittance. Mena looked from the wicket and
saw Phradates, supported by two soldiers. His face was pale and his
helmet had been shattered.
"Open!" cried the soldiers. "Your master has been wounded."
Several of the slaves started forward and laid their hands upon the
bars, but the Egyptian pushed them back.
"There is no longer master or slave in Tyre," he said. "Each man must
think first of himself."
At the suggestion of Phradates the soldiers bore him to the rear of the
house, where there was a small door leading to the kitchens. It was
opened by a white-haired crone, whose eyes were blinded with tears.
"Bring him in," she cried. "I am his nurse."
"Take him, then," the soldiers said roughly, irritated by the delay.
"He owes us fifty darics for bringing him off, and we have our own to
save."
Upheld by the trembling arms of the old woman, Phradates staggered
across the threshold. He could no longer feel the earth beneath his
feet. If he could only rest a little!
"Is it you, mother?" he asked faintly. "I must sleep."
"Yes, yes, master," the old woman replied through her sobs, "but not
here. Come to your own chamber."
She tried to urge him toward the banqueting hall, but his steps grew
more uncertain and his weight became too great for her feeble strength.
"Mena!" she called. "Mena, here is your master. Come and help him!"
The Egyptian ran in furiously and closed the door that she had left
open in her anxiety.
"Do you want to have us all killed?" he demanded, turning upon the old
woman. "Take that, my master, for the beatings you have given me!"
He plunged his dagger into the young man's defenceless side, and
Phradates sank to the floor.
"Thais!" he muttered, "where art thou?"
The old woman uttered a quivering cry and fell upon her knees beside
him, trying with her robe to stop the flow of blood. Mena ran back to
the front of the house, leaving her alone with the body.
"Speak to me! Speak to me!" she wailed, not knowing what she said; but
Phradates made no reply.
Tyre was in a turmoil of riot and license. The real fighting was at an
end, but the soldiers were everywhere pillaging and drinking. Costly
fabrics were trampled in the mud of the gutters. Rare vases and
priceless statuary were shattered upon the pavements. Rough
Thessalians ransacked the houses of rich merchants for gold and gems,
destroying with laughter and jests what they did not want. The stifled
screams of women mingled with their voices. Here a soldier emerged
from a great house with his arms full of rich silks. Another shouted
to him that a hoard of gold had been discovered close at hand, and he
straightway dropped his burden that he might get his share of the more
convenient plunder. There a man who had found a huge tusk of ivory
tried to carry it away on his shoulder, while his comrades wrestled
with him for it, uttering shouts of laughter as their fingers slipped
upon its polished surface. Sometimes swords were drawn and blood
flowed over a bag of gold or a necklace of pearls. Bands of
mercenaries paraded with wine-skins on their backs, singing the hymns
of Dionysus and squirting the precious vintage into each other's faces.
Gorged with blood, the army glutted itself in a delirium of indulgence.
In the universal license the baser elements of the city's population
joined in the pillage with none to hinder, for the Macedonians were too
intent upon their revenge to heed them. Like Mena, slaves rose against
their masters, and entire families were slain for the sake of plunder
or to requite harsh treatment. The prisons were broken open and their
inmates set at liberty. The sailors about the harbors, who had been
kept inactive by the blockade of the fleet, desperate men from all
quarters of the sea, satisfied their ferocious appetites at will. In
the frenzied carnival of lust and slaughter, neither age nor innocence
was spared.
The swirl of the battle drew Syphax and his companions from their
haunts among the great warehouses near the waterside, where they had
been drinking. The bloated face of the freebooter grew purple with
eagerness as he heard the sounds of conflict and of panic spread
through the city.
"Ho, comrades!" he shouted, "to-day we pay ourselves for all we have
had to endure from Fortune! The spoil lies ready for us."
"Break open the warehouses and load a ship with ivory and silk," cried
one of his followers.
"You are a fool," Syphax replied contemptuously. "We should be sunk
before we could get out of the harbor. Take nothing but gold and
jewels. We can hide them until the time comes to escape. Look there!"
An old man, a member of the council, came running toward them, glancing
back over his shoulder to see if he was being pursued. Syphax grasped
him by the arm and tore the heavy golden chain of office from his neck.
The man made no resistance, but fled away without a word as soon as he
was released.
"This is what we want," Syphax cried, holding up the shining links.
"Be bold and follow me."
He set off toward a part of the city that the Macedonians seemed not
yet to have penetrated. It was a quarter where many wealthy houses
stood, and the sailors were fortunate enough to arrive among the first
of the marauders. In half an hour, each of them had collected a
fortune in gold and precious stones. There was blood upon the hands of
Syphax and one of his men had a cut across his forehead when they came
out of the last house, carrying their spoil in small, heavy bundles.
The city was in its death-throes. From harbor to harbor it had become
a vast shambles.
"Let us get back to the warehouses and bury what we have," one of the
seamen said.
Syphax looked about him, and his glance fell upon the house where he
had seen Ariston enter. In their immediate vicinity there was yet no
sign of the enemy. A cruel gleam entered the pirate's bloodshot eyes.
"Now that we are rich," he cried, "it is no more than fair that we
should pay our debts. I have one yonder that must be discharged, and
to you I resign my share of whatever of value we may find inside."
"Lead on, then, but hasten," the sailors answered.
Syphax found the door bolted, as he had expected. His men battered it
in with stones and rushed into the entrance hall. The place seemed
deserted. The sailors scattered through the house in search of booty,
but Syphax sought only his enemy.
The terrified family had taken refuge in an alcove on the third floor
of the house. There one of the sailors found them and summoned his
chief with a joyful shout. Ariston and his host stood at the entrance
of the recess, with swords in their hands to defend the women, a mother
and three daughters, who cowered behind them in the shadow with two
slave girls only, the rest of the household having fled. The sailors
laughed at the two feeble old men who dared to oppose them.
"Spare our lives and you shall each receive five thousand talents of
gold," Ariston cried. "I am Ariston of Athens, and I pledge myself to
the payment."
"We know what the pledges of Ariston are worth!" Syphax replied, his
face convulsed with hate and rage.
"We are lost, my friend," Ariston said, in a low voice, to his host,
recognizing the pirate.
"You bade me once to remember Medon," Syphax bellowed. "I bid thee now
to remember him and the silver talent thou wert to give me for what was
done in Athens. I have had no luck since; and now thou shalt pay for
all!" He rushed upon Ariston, who tried to defend himself; but the
pirate easily disarmed him and dragged him out into the room. The
master of the house fell beneath a shower of blows.
"Now for the harbor! Our time is short," Syphax shouted, hurrying
Ariston with him down the stairs.
The screaming and prayers of the women mingled with sounds of brutal
merriment told him that his order was unheeded.
"Do you hear?" he roared. "Come, I tell you, before it is too late!"
This time two of the wretches obeyed him, bursting from the room with
loud guffaws. The others straggled after them, but several minutes
elapsed before they were all assembled for the sally.
"Why not do it here?" one of the sailors asked, indicating Ariston,
whose arm Syphax held in a firm grasp.
"Because I intend to make him remember Medon," the freebooter answered
savagely. "You shall see sport when we reach the harbor."
A cold sweat covered Ariston's forehead, but he made no sound. His ear
had caught the trampling of feet, and he hoped yet for rescue.
The sailors emerged into the street and turned toward the harbor. Just
as they reached the first corner, a company of Thessalians, in pursuit
of a few Tyrian fugitives, ran into them. No questions were asked.
The swords of the cavalrymen were already out, and they drove them into
the bodies of the men who were unfortunate enough to block their way.
Syphax alone had time to drop his booty and draw his sword. He saw
that there was no escape.
"Thou hast been my evil genius," he cried to Ariston, "but at any rate
thou shalt go with me to the Styx."
He plunged his sword into the old man's side. Before he could withdraw
it, a Thessalian blade cleft his skull. Murderer and victim fell
together.
The storm had blown over. The sinking sun shone crimson upon the
twisted clouds far across the sky. In the quarter where the Israelites
dwelt, amid the mourning and rejoicing, Pethuel, the high priest,
raised his hands to heaven.
"Give thanks to Jehovah!" he cried. "Our enemies have fallen and they
that mocked Him are no more! Blessed be the name of the Lord!"