Siege of Tyre (332 BC) | |||||||||
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Part of the Wars of Alexander the Great | |||||||||
![]() Map of troop movements during Alexander's siege | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Macedon Hellenic League | Tyrian city-state | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Alexander the Great Hephaestion | Azemilcus ![]() | ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
120 ships [1] | 80 ships [2] | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
400 killed [3] | 6,000–7,000 killed in action 2,000 executed [4] 13,000–30,000 civilians enslaved [5] | ||||||||
Location within Lebanon Location within Western Asia |
The Siege of Tyre was orchestrated by Alexander the Great in 332 BC during his campaigns against the Persians. The Macedonian army was unable to capture the city, which was a strategic coastal base on the Mediterranean Sea, through conventional means because it was on an island and had walls right up to the sea. Alexander responded to this problem by first blockading and besieging Tyre for seven months, and then by building a causeway and placing siege towers with catapults built on top at the end after his soldiers discovered that they could not extend it any further due to a steep drop under the surface of the water. This allowed him to breach the fortifications.
It is said that Alexander was so enraged at the Tyrians' defence of their city and the loss of his men that he destroyed half the city. According to Arrian, 8,000 Tyrian civilians were massacred after the city fell. Alexander granted pardon to all who had sought sanctuary in the temple, including Azemilcus and his family, as well as many nobles. 30,000 residents and foreigners, mainly women and children, were sold into slavery.
Tyre, the largest and most important city-state of Phoenicia, was located both on the Mediterranean coast as well as a nearby island with two natural harbours on the landward side. The island lay about a kilometre from the coast in Alexander’s days, its high walls reaching 45.8 m (150 ft) above the sea on the eastern, landward facing, side of the island.
The location of Tyre was ideal for the seafaring habits of the Phoenician people, but also proved to make it hard to attack. The matchup between Alexander the Great’s army and the forces of a Phoenician city state might sound like an unfair fight, but Tyre’s logistics made for a long and grueling siege. Tyre’s split location between an island [6] about half a mile off the coast of present day Lebanon and the mainland makes it challenging to strategize against. The Tyrian people were also skilled fighters, and they used their surroundings to their advantage. The Tyrian navy was known as very disciplined and skilled at warfare on the sea, an area that Alexander’s army was not as talented in. Many ancient civilizations have set their eyes on Tyre. Perhaps they saw potential in the city; it could serve as an important naval base. Alexander the Great, a man praised for his military prowess, [7] wanted to see if he could assert his dominance over the entire Mediterranean region before any other civilizations captured the city. Tyre was also a prosperous city, with a great deal of wealth among the population. Tyre was a crucial port city in the Mediterranean trade network, fostering the movement of goods, ideas, and people. Alexander the Great saw an opportunity to get involved in trade routes that would probably be beneficial to his people. Phoenician city states at the time were not tightly bound to each other; they worked together but mostly existed independently. [8] Alexander the Great would not have to worry so much about other parties getting involved in the conflict.
At the time of the siege, the city held approximately 40,000 people, though the women and children had been evacuated to Carthage, the former Phoenician colony and then Mediterranean power. The Carthaginians also promised to send a fleet to their mother city’s aid. As Alexander did not have access to his own navy, he resolved to take the city and thus deny the Persians their last harbour in the region.
Alexander knew of a temple to Melqart, whom he identified with Heracles, within the new city walls and informed the inhabitants that they would be spared if he were allowed to make a sacrifice in the temple [9] (the old port had been abandoned and the Tyrians were now living on an offshore island a kilometre from the mainland). The defenders refused to allow this and suggested he use the temple on the mainland, saying that they would not let Persians or Macedonians within their new city. A second attempt at negotiation resulted in Alexander's representatives being killed and then thrown from the walls into the sea. Alexander was enraged at the Tyrian defiance and ordered the siege to commence. [10]
As Alexander could not attack the city from the sea, he built a kilometre-long two hundred foot-wide causeway (claimed so by Diodorus) stretching out to the island on a natural land bridge no more than two meters deep. [11]
This causeway allowed his artillery to get in range of the walls, and is still there to this day, as it was made of stone. As the work came near the city walls, however, the water became much deeper, and the combined attacks from the walls and Tyrian navy made construction nearly impossible. Therefore, Alexander constructed two towers 50 m (160 ft) high and moved them to the end of the causeway. Like most of Alexander’s siege towers, these were moving artillery platforms, with catapults on the top to clear defenders off the walls, and ballista below to hurl rocks at the wall and attacking ships. The towers were made of wood, but were covered in rawhide to protect them from fire arrows. Although these towers were possibly the largest of their kind ever made, the Tyrians quickly devised a counter-attack. They used an old horse transport ship, filling it with dried branches, pitch, sulphur, and various other combustibles. They then hung cauldrons of oil from the masts, so that they would fall onto the deck once the masts burned through. They also weighed down the back of the ship so that the front rose above the water. They then set the ship on fire and ran it up onto the causeway. The fire spread quickly, engulfing both towers and other siege equipment that had been brought up. The Tyrian ships swarmed the pier, destroying any siege equipment that hadn’t caught fire, and driving off Macedonian crews who were trying to put out the fires.
After this setback, Alexander was convinced that he would not be able to take Tyre without a navy. Fortunately for Alexander, his previous victory at Issus and subsequent conquests of the Phoenician city states of Byblos, Arwad and Sidon had meant that the fleets of these cities, which had composed most of the Persian navy, came under his banner. This immediately gave him command of a fleet of 80 ships. This development coincided also with the arrival of 120 war galleys sent by the king of Cyprus, who had heard of his victories and wished to join him. With the arrival of another 23 ships from the Greek city states of Ionia, Alexander had 223 galleys under his command, giving him command of the sea. Along with the navy he broadened the width of his mole to allow for more defensive engines to provide proper protection from the Tyrians.
With his new fleet, Alexander's forces sailed on Tyre and quickly blockaded both ports with its superior numbers. Alexander had several of the slower galleys and a few barges refitted with battering rams. Finding that large underwater blocks of stone kept the rams from reaching the walls, Alexander had them removed by crane ships. The rams were then anchored near the walls, but the Tyrians sent out ships and divers to cut the anchor cables. Alexander responded by replacing the cables with chains.
The Tyrians launched another counter-attack, but according to Arrian, were not so fortunate this time. The surprise attack went well initially. They noticed that Alexander returned to the mainland at the same time every afternoon for a meal and a rest along with much of his navy. The Tyrians were upon the engineers and builders on the mole before they had to time to react. They slaughtered many soldiers before they were held by the remaining sailors until backup arrived and the attack was pushed back. For some reason on this day, Alexander had skipped his afternoon nap, and sailed around the city to capture those of the attacking force that had made an attempt to retreat. [12]
Alexander started testing the wall at various points with his rams, until the rams made a small breach in the south end of the island. He then coordinated an attack across the breach with a bombardment from all sides by his navy. Alexander is said to have personally taken part in the attack on the city, fighting from the top of a siege tower. [13] Once his troops forced their way into the city, they easily overtook the garrison, and quickly captured the city.
Those citizens who took shelter in the temple of Melqart were pardoned by Alexander, including the king of Tyre. According to Quintus Curtius Rufus 6,000 fighting men were killed within the city and 2,000 Tyrians were crucified on the beach. [13] The others, some 30,000 people, were sold into slavery. The severity of reprisals reflected the length of the siege and Alexander's response to the Tyrians having executed some of his soldiers on the walls, in sight of the attackers.
Following the capture of Tyre, Alexander moved south to attack Gaza.
Polyaenus the Macedonian, in one of the two stratagems he gives about Alexander's siege of Tyre, provides a different account of Alexander’s conquest of the city. According to him, Alexander had marched into Arabia having left Parmenion in charge of the besieging force. The Tyrians found the courage to exit their walls and engage the Greeks, often beating them in various skirmishes. Alexander was informed and hurried back, reaching the city exactly when the Tyrians were fighting against a retreating Parmenion. Instead of attacking the Tyrians, he chose to march directly to the city, which he immediately took by force surprising its remaining garrison. Another view is that Alexander was so incensed at having to build a bridge to take the city of Tyre that he decided to kill or enslave most of Tyre's population. [14]
Tyre is a city in Lebanon, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, though in medieval times for some centuries by just a small population. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa, her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix, as well as Carthage's founder Dido (Elissa). The city has many ancient sites, including the Tyre Hippodrome, and was added as a whole to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1984. The historian Ernest Renan noted that "One can call Tyre a city of ruins, built out of ruins".
Melqart was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre and a major deity in the Phoenician and Punic pantheons. He may have been central to the founding-myths of various Phoenician colonies throughout the Mediterranean, as well as the source of several myths concerning the exploits of Heracles. Many cities were thought to be founded and protected by Melqart, no doubt springing from the original Phoenician practice of building a Temple of Melqart at new colonies. Similar to Tammuz and Adonis, he symbolized an annual cycle of death and rebirth.
A fire ship or fireship is a large wooden vessel set on fire to be used against enemy ships during a ramming attack or similar maneuver. Fireships were used to great effect against wooden ships throughout naval military history up until the advent of metal-hulled ships; they could also serve a considerable function in shock and awe strategies to harm the morale of enemy crews. Ships used for fireship tactics were sometimes surplus, obsolete or purpose-build vessels filled with gunpowder or other combustibles, but could also be improvised from active warships purposefully set on fire during engagements, such as if a vessel expended its munitions or had some other reason to be abandoned in battle.
The wars of Alexander the Great were a series of conquests that were carried out by Alexander III of Macedon from 336 BC to 323 BC. They began with battles against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, then under the rule of Darius III of Persia. After Alexander's chain of victories against Achaemenid Persia, he began a campaign against local chieftains and warlords that stretched from Greece to as far as the region of Punjab in South Asia. At the time of his death, he ruled over most regions of Greece and the conquered Achaemenid Empire ; he did not, however, manage to conquer the Indian subcontinent in its entirety according to his initial plan. Despite his military accomplishments, Alexander did not provide any stable alternative to the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, and his untimely death threw the vast territories he conquered into a series of civil wars, commonly known as the Wars of the Diadochi.
The King of Tyre was the ruler of Tyre, the ancient Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. The traditional list of 12 kings, with reigns dated to 990–785 BC, is derived from the lost history of Menander of Ephesus as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion I. 116–127. Josephus asserts that Menander had drawn his list from the chronicles of Tyre itself. Menander-Josephus also contains a list of 9 kings and judges, with reigns dated to 591–532 BC in Against Apion I. 154–160.
The ancient history of Cyprus shows a precocious sophistication in the Neolithic era visible in settlements such as at Choirokoitia dating from the 9th millennium BC, and at Kalavassos from about 7500 BC.
The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC on the coast of Northwest Africa, in what is now Tunisia, as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. The name of both the city and the wider republic that grew out of it, Carthage developed into a significant trading empire throughout the Mediterranean. The date from which Carthage can be counted as an independent power cannot exactly be determined, and probably nothing distinguished Carthage from the other Phoenician colonies in Northwest Africa and the Mediterranean during 800–700 BC. By the end of the 7th century BC, Carthage was becoming one of the leading commercial centres of the West Mediterranean region. After a long conflict with the emerging Roman Republic, known as the Punic Wars, Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BC. A Roman Carthage was established on the ruins of the first. Roman Carthage was eventually destroyed—its walls torn down, its water supply cut off, and its harbours made unusable—following its conquest by Arab invaders at the close of the 7th century. It was replaced by Tunis as the major regional centre, which has spread to include the ancient site of Carthage in a modern suburb.
The Tyre District is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon.
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Azemilcus ('zmlk\) was the King of Tyre during its siege by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Alexander had already peacefully taken Byblos and Sidon, and Tyre sent envoys to Alexander agreeing to do his bidding. His response was to declare that he wished to enter the city to sacrifice to Melqart, known to Alexander as the Tyrian Herakles. Azemilcus was with the Persian fleet at the time, and the Tyrians, unsure who would win the war, responded by saying that they would obey any other command but that neither Persians nor Macedonians could enter the city. When Alexander finally captured the city, Azemilcus and various other notables, including envoys from Carthage, had taken refuge in the temple of Melqart, and Alexander spared their lives.
The siege of Motya took place in summer 398 BC in western Sicily. Dionysius, after securing peace with Carthage in 405 BC, had steadily increased his military power and had tightened his grip on Syracuse. He had fortified Syracuse against sieges and had created a large army of mercenaries and a large fleet, in addition to employing the catapult and quinqueremes for the first time in history. In 398 BC, he attacked and sacked the Phoenician city of Motya despite the Carthaginian relief effort led by Himilco. Carthage also lost most of her territorial gains secured in 405 BC after Dionysius declared war on Carthage in 398 BC.
The Persian Empire, including modern Lebanon, eventually fell to Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia. He attacked Asia Minor, defeated the Persian troops in 333 BC, and advanced toward the Lebanese coast. Initially the Phoenician cities made no attempt to resist, and they recognized his suzerainty. However, when Alexander tried to offer a sacrifice to Melqart, Tyre's god, the city resisted. Alexander besieged Tyre in retaliation in early 332 BC. After seven months of resistance, the city fell, and its people were sold into slavery. Despite his early death in 323 BC, Alexander's conquest of the eastern Mediterranean Basin left a Greek imprint on the area. The Phoenicians, being a cosmopolitan people amenable to outside influences, adopted aspects of Greek civilization with ease
Pharnabazus III was a Persian satrap who fought against Alexander the Great. His father was Artabazos II, and his mother a Greek from Rhodes.
Theodorus of Samos was a 6th-century BC ancient Greek sculptor and architect from the Greek island of Samos. Along with Rhoecus, he was often credited with the invention of ore smelting and, according to Pausanias, the craft of casting. He is also credited with inventing a water level, a carpenter's square, and, according to Pliny, a lock and key and the turning lathe. According to Vitruvius, Theodorus is the architect of the Doric order temple Heraion of Samos temple. In some texts he is described, above all, as a great artist and in some statues he is depicted as a great inventor.
The Battle of Uxian Defile was fought by Alexander the Great against the Uxian tribe of the Persian Empire. The battle raged on the mountain range between the key Persian cities of Susa and Persepolis. Persepolis was the ancient capital of the Persian Empire and held a symbolic value among the native Persian population. They believed that if this city were to fall into enemy hands, then, in effect, the whole Persian Empire would fall into the hands of the enemy.
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Phoenicia, or Phœnicia, was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization originating in the coastal strip of the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenicians expanded and contracted throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel in modern Israel covering the entire coast of modern Lebanon. Beyond their homeland, the Phoenicians extended through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
Cyropolis was the largest of seven towns in the region that Alexander the Great targeted for conquest in 329 BC. His goal was the conquest of Sogdiana. Alexander first sent Craterus to Cyropolis, the largest of the Sogdian towns holding out against Alexander's forces. Craterus' instructions were to "take up a position close to the town, surround it with a ditch and stockade, and then assemble such siege engines as might suit his purpose....". The idea was to keep the inhabitants focused on their own defences and to prevent them from sending assistance out to the other towns.
Tyre, in Lebanon, is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for over 4,700 years. Situated in the Levant on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Tyre became the leading city of the Phoenician civilization in 969 BC with the reign of the Tyrian king Hiram I, the city of Tyre alongside its Phoenician homeland are also credited with numerous innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. The Phoenician Tyrians' international trade network was based on its two ports and is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization.
The siege of Tyre is usually assumed to have been waged for 13 years from 586 to 573 BC by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. The siege of Tyre, in Phoenicia, has a significant connection to the Book of Ezekiel which in chapter 26 announces that the city will soon fall to the Babylonian forces, while chapter 29 states that the siege was partially unsuccessful. Only Josephus mentions that the siege lasted for 13 years, both in Antiquities of the Jews and in Against Apion (1.156-159). However, he dates the beginning of the siege to the 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 598/597 BC.
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