Alexander the Great’s Defiant Siege of Tyre

Alexander the Great’s siege of the island city of Tyre used all the innovation and cunning worthy of a conqueror who is still remembered to this day.

Amid his campaigns against the mighty Persian Empire in the early fourth century BC, Alexander the Great came up against a very different kind of challenge. This was how to siege a well-defended island city.

Alexander the Great had led his army of about forty thousand men into Phoenicia. This primarily comprises modern day Lebanon. Alexander had just defeated Darius III at the battle of Issus in November 333 BC, and Tyrian envoys conveyed their allegiance to him.

Alexander the Great’s Siege of Tyre

Still he marched, resolved to take the island city of Tyre and alleviate the Persians of their last harbor in the region. This is according to Arrian, the Greek historian of the Roman period. Arrian claimed the great conqueror knew of a temple in the city devoted to Melqart, the Phoenician version of Heracles. Hence, Alexander the Great made it known to the inhabitants of the island that if they would allow him to make a sacrifice in the temple, he would spare their lives.

The Tyrians saw through Alexander the Great’s ploy to enter the city. Consequently, they refused to allow him in, suggesting instead that the conqueror sacrifice to Heracles in Old Tyre. This was a city built on the mainland which was of no strategic importance and was thus undefended. It was unlike the new island of Tyre, where the Tyrian navy was stationed.

Arrian tells us that Alexander saw the Tyrian rejection of his request as a declaration of war. The Tyrians were supposedly extremely well defended with a powerful navy and mercenary army. Their city was located around half a mile offshore, boasting walls of 150 feet in height.

The Tyre Blockade

Alexander set off in January 332 BC by carrying out a blockade of Tyre for several months. At this time, women and children were ferried off to safety, mostly in Carthage.

After this, the ingenuity of the ambitious expansionist kicked in. Alexander the Great ordered his men to construct a great causeway from stone, earth, and wood. This was to span the water between the mainland and the new city of Tyre, ready for a siege.

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The buildings and settlements of Old Tyre were dismantled for their materials, which went towards building the great connecting mole.

Challenges With the Siege of Tyre

Initially, construction went well. The causeway progressed quickly, but as the great project grew in length, the water became deeper at eighteen feet near the city walls. Thus, the Greeks began to struggle.

Work slowed, and the builders began being shot at by archers from the city walls. Alexander the Great had two siege towers constructed from timber covered with wet hide. This was so as to prevent them from catching fire. He positioned them at the end of the mole near Tyre. The towers were fitted with artillery equipment at the top, and were therefore capable of returning fire at the city walls.

The Tyrian Forces Responded With Fire

In response, the Tyrians created a ‘fireship,’ a boat filled with combustible materials and layered with pitch and brimstone, according to WarfareHistoryNetwork.com. From the masts, they hung big pots of flammable substances.

A heavy weight was fixed to the back of the ship. This caused the front of the ship to rise above water. When a favorable wind came about, the Tyrian triremes, or oared ships, towed the fireship away from the harbor and let it run into Alexander the Great’s causeway.

The Tyrian sailors on board the fireship threw their torches onto the combustible and flammable material and jumped into the water. They were able to swim safely back to the city. There was then a huge blaze on the ship, and the hanging pots spilled their contents onto the causeway.

Meanwhile, sailors on other Tyrian ships stayed close and showered Alexander the Great’s siege towers with a volley of missiles. This discouraged the Macedonians from getting close enough to extinguish the flames.

The towers began burning, and a crew of Tyrian ships then attacked the mole at all points, leading to significant damage to the stockade surrounding the structure. Hans Jongeling, an academic at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, writes in his work The Siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great, that this fiery setback was enough to convince the Macedonian king that he would not take Tyre without a navy.

Alexander Calls Upon His New Allies

Nonetheless, as fortune would have it, Alexander’s previous victory at Issus and subsequent Phoenician city states of Byblos, Arwad, and Sidon, meant that the fleets of these cities were his to command. All in all, it was a total of eighty ships. The King of Cyprus also sent the conqueror 120 war galleys after hearing of his victories and wishing to join him.

With the addition of twenty-three ships from the Greek city states of Ionia, Alexander the Great had 223 galleys at his disposal.

After many advances and counter attacks as well as ambushes and military strategy playing out in the waters, Alexander was able to use his fleet to permanently blockade Tyre’s harbors. He prevented Tyrian ships from launching offensives against his now-widened and defensively-bolstered causeway.

The conqueror completed his mole to reach the city. He then began testing the walls at several points with his rams.

These eventually made a small breach at the south end of the island. It was here through which Alexander coordinated an attack across the breach using a bombardment from all sides with his navy.

Alexander the Great personally took part in the attack, fighting from atop of one of his siege towers. Once his forces entered the city, they easily overpowered the garrison, and captured the rest of Tyre.

Citizens who took shelter in the temple of Melqart were spared. This included the king of Tyre. According to the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, six thousand soldiers were killed within the city walls, and two thousand Tyrians were crucified on the beach, a method of death that originated with the Assyrians and Babylonians. The Persians used it systematically in the sixth century BC, and Alexander brought it from there to the eastern Mediterranean countries. The rest—around thirty thousand—were sold into slavery.