After a few months, following the great Macedonian victory over Persian King Darius near the town of Issus, Macedonian King Alexander was standing on the Phoenician beach, looking at one of the most formidable strongholds of antiquity. He was perfectly aware, that leaving it behind was not an option, yet the proud citizens of Tyre refuse to be subordinate to Alexander’s will and fail to surrender the city. It looks like the long and grueling siege, which the Macedonians tried to avoid, was imminent. It was November of the year 333 BCE. The dust had not settled yet on the battlefield south of Issus, and Alexander did not celebrate his stunning triumph for too long.
The Road to the East was open, but the Macedonian King did not get too enticed about it yet. He knew that the Persian fleet operating on the Mediterranean still posed a serious threat, and could burden the Macedonian effort to conquer the inland of the Persian Empire, thus he decided to march south and secure the rich Phoenician coastline. By January of 332 BCE, the busy ports and trade centers of Arwad, Byblos and Sidon pledged allegiance to Macedonian rule, one after another. Alexander’s next objective lay 30 kilometers south of Sidon. The City of Tyre, probably the wealthiest and most influential of all Phoenician settlements, famous for its rare dye production and thriving economy, served as an important Persian naval base, the last in the region still under their control. In fact, it comprised of two pieces – a barely defended coastal settlement named „Old Tyre”, serving as a source of water, timber and burial grounds for the heavily fortified second piece, the island-city of „New Tyre”, situated about 700 meters off the coast.
The offshore fortress of Tyre withstood a good number of sieges in the past, most notably the one laid by King Nebuchadnezzar (606 – 562 BCE) of Babylon roughly two centuries earlier, which lasted 13 years and was ended by a compromise. Citizens of Tyre had reason to be confident because they had a powerful navy, and mercenary units, which render any foreign plans to conquer the city almost delusional. The city was also surrounded with thick walls.
Being aware of the Macedonian intentions, the Tyrians prepared for a siege and evacuated most of the women and children to Carthage, an ancient Phoenician colony. Forty thousand people remained within the city walls to defend their home. Because Alexander knew that besieging Tyre would last months if not years, he took a hefty amount of both resources and labor, but he also did not want to leave the unconquered Phoenician stronghold behind before marching on to Egypt.
Initially, Tyrian envoys gave the impression that the city was prepared to honor Alexander’s terms, but the Tyrian leadership turned down his request to make a sacrifice to Heracles in New Tyre’s temple. The city’s heralds obviously feared a trap, and offered him the use of the temple in Old Tyre instead, but that would not content the Macedonian King, as many were convinced the mainland settlement strategically unimportant. Alexander sent his own envoys calling for a last chance to surrender in order to avoid the exhausting siege, but the Tyrians slew the Macedonian emissaries and threw the bodies down to the sea. Such a disgraceful act enraged Alexander. He immediately ordered his troops to raze Old Tyre and start the siege preparations. You may ask the question: how could Alexander besiege an island-city with barely any ships at his disposal? The answer was quite simple. The region connected New Tyre to the mainland through a natural land bridge; most of it submerged just two meters deep. Alexander used the building material and rubble gathered from destroyed Old Tyre and attempted to build a causeway across the channel toward the walled city. The construction went fairly well at the beginning, allowing the Macedonian’s siege engines to launch their projectiles at the city walls. But the closer the Macedonian laborers came to the city, the slower the construction went, as the sea floor began to go deeper, requiring considerably more work and material. The Tyrian defense also intensified, as the works reached the range of their missile fire. The Macedonians built two siege towers covered with rawhide, and they positioned it at the end of the causeway. Catapults mounted on their tops harassed the defenders and allowed the work on the passage to continue.
Tyrians saw that things were not going well, and decided to use a more active defense instead. They filled up the old horse transport ship with combustibles, lit it up, and ran it onto the pier using other ships to tow it. Flames quickly spread and soon both palisades and siege towers were on fire. The Tyrian navy attacked the Macedonian laborers, who tried to douse the fire. The Tyrian navy forced laborers to flee back to the mainland. However, Alexander did not give up and commanded his men to widen the causeway and build more siege towers, he also realized that he would not be able to take the city without naval superiority. He rode back to Sidon and requested the fleets of the recently conquered Phoenician cities to join him. He also managed to gather some ships from Ionia and his homeland Macedonia. This way, he acquired a little more than 100 galleys under his command. At the last moment, having heard of Alexander’s victories, the King of Cyprus wished to join him, contributing another 120 ships to the Macedonian fleet.
With a dramatically increased naval potential, Alexander set sail back to the besieged city, and forced the outnumbered Tyrian fleet to withdraw to their harbors, thus gaining the command of the sea. Macedonian combat engineers built Siege engines and they positioned them on the causeway, but this time catapults installed on the ships also bombarded the city. However, despite the improved tactics used by the attackers, the island fortress stood strong with no thought of surrender. Tyrians prepared another sortie in order to cut the anchor cables of the besieging Macedonian ships, but this time the Macedonians pushed them back to the harbor. Still, the divers, forcing Alexander to use chains instead, constantly cut down the ropes. Greek Combat engineers repurposed some galleys and equipped them with battering rams, but to use them, the Macedonians needed to use crane ships and remove boulders blocking access to the walls. The Tyrians realized that the siege was tightening and rushed their best men in another sortie, this time from the Sidonian harbor. A surprise attack on the undermanned Cyprian ships destroyed some of them and scattered the rest, relieving the defenders of the northern part of the city. Eventually, they were pushed back to the harbor, as Alexander immediately countered the sudden attack, however they managed to punch a big hole in the encirclement, though only temporarily. The blockade continued, Macedonian attacks from the then finished causeway were fruitless, attempts to force their way inside the city only increased the death toll.
Finally, thrusting the city walls with ship battering rams yielded results. The Macedonians made a small breach in the southern wall, and a dim light appeared at the end of the tunnel, a bit of hope for a successful conclusion to the siege. Alexander had waited months for such an opportunity. He gathered the best Hypaspists and Pezhetairoi available and prepared an assault focused on the breach. The Macedonians performed heavy bombardments from all sides to keep the defenders busy. Accompanied by the clamor caused by the barrage, Alexander led the attack on the damaged city wall. Brutal melee fighting raged around the breach and soon the attackers managed to hack their way into the city. With the breach widened, more troops poured inside and a merciless slaughter began, as Macedonians sought revenge for six months of atrocities and torment. The Macedonians slayed six thousand Tyrian defenders, with another
PRIMARY SOURCES: Green, Peter. Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.: A Historical Biography. Berkeley:University of California Press, 1991.Kern, Paul Bentley. Ancient Siege Warfare. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.Sekunda, Nick, and John Warry. Alexander the Great: His Armies and Campaigns, 332–323 B.C. London: Osprey, 1988. Baz Battles Videos on the Siege of Tyre.The Great Courses Plus on the Siege of Tyre.