The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

This victory allowed the Macedonians to carry on their unobstructed operations against the wall. But its height and solidity opposite to the mole baffled their efforts to make a breach in it, and they were equally unsuccessful in an attack made at midnight by the floating batteries on the part near the Sidonian harbour. A storm had suddenly arisen; the quadriremes, which had been fastened together and covered with planks to afford footing to the soldiers, were torn asunder and dashed against each other, the men who were stationed on them being precipitated into the water. In the darkness and noise, signals could not be seen, nor the word of command heard. The soldiers overpowered the pilots, and compelled them to seek the shore, which they reached in confusion and with much damage. The Tyrians began a second wall within the first, that they might still have a defence, in the event of a breach being effected; but their fears were indicated by the awakening of superstition. It was a prevalent belief that the gods abandoned a city which was about to fall into the hands of an enemy. A citizen reported that he had seen in a dream Apollo preparing to desert Tyre. He was not one of their ancient divinities; but the Carthaginians had brought a statue of him from Syracuse, and had placed it at Tyre, where it had attracted the veneration of the people. To prevent the desertion of the god, they bound his statue by a golden chain to the altar of their native deity, Melkarth. There were some who would have propitiated Saturn, as the Greeks and Latins called Moloch, by the sacrifice of a child of noble birth, according to the immemorial custom of the Phœnicians in times of public distress and alarm; but the wiser counsel of the elder men prevailed. It was probably, however, at this time that the Tyrians, having taken some Macedonians who were on a voyage from Sidon, put them to death upon the walls, in view of their countrymen, and cast their bodies into the sea. If any reliance had been placed on aid from Carthage, it was dissipated by the arrival of an embassy, which informed them that none could be expected. The republic had been exhausted by its wars in Sicily, and had not long before concluded an humiliating peace with Timoleon. They could only promise the Tyrians an asylum for their wives and children, part of whom had been transported thither before the capture of the city.

The attack upon the walls was carried on with the greatest energy, and repelled by the use of all the arts of defensive warfare. To deaden the blows of the battering-ram, and the force of the stones hurled from the catapults, bags of leather filled with seaweed were suspended from the walls. Tyre as a naval city abounded in ingenious mechanicians, who devised new engines for its defence. They erected on the walls circular machines, the interior of which was filled with several layers of yielding materials. These were set in rapid motion, and the darts and other missiles which struck upon them were either blunted and turned aside by the force of their rotation; or, if they penetrated beyond the surface, were stopped by the soft substances within. The Macedonians raised towers upon the mole, which had now advanced to the island, equalling the wall in height, and by throwing bridges from them to the battlements, endeavoured to pass over into the city. The Tyrian mechanicians constructed long grappling-hooks, which they fastened to ropes, and, throwing them out to a distance, laid hold of the soldiers on the towers. If their bodies were caught, they were miserably mangled; if the hook fixed itself on their shields, they were compelled either to abandon them, and expose their undefended bodies; or if, from a feeling of military honour, they clung to them, they were dragged over the tower and precipitated to the ground. Others of the assailants met with the same fate, having been entangled in nets, which rendered them unable to use their hands. Masses of red-hot metal were thrown from the machines, which among the dense crowd never fell ineffectually. A new mode of annoyance was devised against those who attempted to scale the walls. Sand intensely heated in shields of brass and iron was poured out upon them from above, and, penetrating between the armour and the skin, inflicted such intolerable pain that the soldiers threw off their coats of mail, and were pierced by the arrows and lances from the wall. With long scythes fixed to the end of yard-arms, the Tyrians cut the ropes and thongs by which the battering-rams were worked. Towards the end of the day they sallied from the walls, armed with hatchets, and a deadly struggle took place on the bridges, which ended in the Macedonians being driven back. Diodorus and Curtius, who are supposed to follow Clitarchus the son of Dinon, a general of Alexander, represent him as meditating to abandon the siege and march on Egypt after this repulse. This is not probable in itself, since his whole enterprise must have failed had he left Tyre behind him, not only unconquered, but triumphant.