In his audacious campaign against the vast Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, confronted a formidable challenge: the island fortress of Tyre. The year was 334 BCE, and his initial victory at the Battle of the Granicus had opened the way to the empire’s heartland. But Alexander’s ambitions depended on his control over the Mediterranean, a sea dominated by the powerful Phoenician fleet, loyal to Persia.
Recognizing that a direct naval confrontation risked heavy losses, Alexander conceived a daring plan. He would march south, conquering the Phoenician coastal cities and denying the Persian fleet its vital ports. But while most Phoenician cities capitulated, Tyre – a bitter rival of the pro-Macedonian city of Sidon – resolved to fight.
Tyre’s Defiance: An Island Fortress
The Tyrians had reason for confidence. Their island city lay nearly a kilometer offshore, encircled by imposing 50-meter walls reaching down to the water’s edge. This denied attackers any staging ground, while catapults bristled along the defenses. Furthermore, Tyre boasted two harbors, ensuring ample supplies, and its fleet controlled the surrounding seas. The Tyrians, recalling previous successful resistances against Assyria and Babylonia, believed they could withstand Alexander’s forces
Undeterred, Alexander embarked on a feat of audacious engineering. His soldiers built a massive causeway, or ‘mole,’ stretching towards Tyre, using stones and timber from the abandoned mainland city. Tyrian ships harassed the builders relentlessly, employing fire ships and divers to impede progress. Yet, Alexander countered, shielding his workers with protective screens and constructing siege towers on the widening mole.
Simultaneously, the Macedonian king assembled a fleet from newly surrendered cities to encircle Tyre by sea. Initially outmatched, Alexander’s ships engaged the Tyrians in daring maneuvers. When reinforcements arrived from Cyprus, the tide turned, trapping the Tyrian fleet within its harbors.
Breaching Tyre’s Walls
With the mole finally reaching the walls, Alexander unleashed his siege engines. Battering rams pounded the defenses while ships armed with catapults bombarded the city from the sea. The Tyrians fought desperately, showering molten metal and burning sand onto attackers and even launching grappling hooks to tear down siege towers.
Finally, a section of the southern wall collapsed. Macedonian troops poured through the breach, and Alexander himself was among the first into the fray.
The aftermath was brutal. Exhausted and vengeful, Alexander’s soldiers massacred thousands of Tyrians, with many of the survivors sold into slavery. Tyre, once a symbol of Phoenician power, was brutally subjugated.
The Art & Perils of Ancient Siege Warfare
In the ancient world, sieges were a formidable test of military prowess and a brutal gamble where the defenders held a distinct advantage. High walls thwarted attackers, who relied on primitive artillery that struggled to inflict catastrophic damage. While defenders rained fire from above, they still remained vulnerable to hails of arrows and early catapult projectiles. Defense tactics focused on massive shields or screens lining the city’s battlements.
The invention of the torsion catapult in 399 BCE marked a technical turning point. This complex engine, described in Greek sources, propelled large arrows or projectiles from a thick bowstring mounted on wooden arms. Additionally, Greek siege towers, hulking wooden structures covered in fireproof materials, allowed attackers to scale fortified walls and engage defenders on equal footing.
Case Study: Alexander the Great and the Siege of Tyre
Alexander’s siege of the island city of Tyre in 332 BCE offers a fascinating glimpse into the realities of ancient warfare. Alexander’s first challenge was simply reaching the city – a task complicated by Tyre’s insular position. His solution? An ingenious causeway stretching from the mainland, a relentless engineering effort built through forced labor.
Tyrian ingenuity, however, was not easily quelled. Their torsion catapults punished Alexander’s workers, while their ships harassed them with constant volleys of projectiles. Alexander retaliated with a protective palisade and the construction of two enormous siege towers – some of the largest ever built. Clad in fire-resistant hides, they offered the Macedonians a chance to fight on even terms.
In a brilliant act of desperation, the Tyrians unleashed a devastating counterattack. Converting ships into floating infernos laden with flammable materials, they ignited and rammed them into Alexander’s siege works. His towers were consumed in flames, the palisade torn down, and rising seas washed away most of the causeway. Tyre, in a stunning reversal, had emerged victorious from the first round of this epic siege.
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The Second Causeway: Engineering Ingenuity
Alexander’s initial audacious attempt to reach Tyre’s walls was met with disastrous failure, exposing a critical vulnerability – a lack of naval power. But, in true Alexandrian fashion, this setback fueled his determination. With reinforcements from the surrendered Phoenician cities and the Cypriot fleet, Alexander’s naval force swelled to over 200 triremes, eclipsing the Tyrian fleet and securing maritime dominance.
Unhindered, Alexander and his engineers embarked on a new causeway. This time, built further north and significantly wider, it was an engineering improvement designed to withstand nature’s forces. Its remnants still connect the modern city of Sur to the Lebanese mainland, a testament to its tenacity. New siege towers were also erected, and continuous patrols cleared the waters, allowing the construction to continue under increased protection.
Tyre’s Desperate Defense
The Tyrians, with their backs against the sea, fought desperately through the summer. Captured Macedonians were cruelly executed atop the city walls, a gruesome spectacle aimed to break Alexander’s resolve. Macedonian messengers also fell victim to their cruelty, foreshadowing the king’s retribution. Yet, the Tyrians were not without guile. Their innovations were impressive; they padded the walls against Macedonian catapults and, according to Diodorus of Siculus, even employed spinning mechanical wheels to deflect incoming arrows, though the accuracy of this claim remains uncertain.
By early August, Alexander’s scouts found a vulnerable point in the city’s southern wall. Meticulously, he planned a synchronized assault. Land and sea forces would strike in unison – ships would harass the harbors while the causeway again served as the primary invasion route. The Tyrians, already stretched thin, were overwhelmed. Alexander’s troops breached the wall, fleets stormed the harbors, and street-to-street fighting erupted. The main Macedonian force, surging across the causeway, sealed Tyre’s doom.
A Brutal Reckoning
Alexander, usually merciful in victory, chose Tyre as his grim example. The Tyrians had violated the unspoken rules of warfare with their treatment of prisoners and messengers. The city was razed, and roughly 8,000 of its citizens perished. Some 2,000 surviving men were crucified, a shocking act of brutality. Tyre’s king, having shown some foresight by earlier sending women and children to Carthage, escaped this fate. The remaining civilians were sold into slavery.
The seven-month siege of Tyre cost the Macedonians 400 men – a small price considering their tactical brilliance and Alexander’s calculated concern for troop preservation. With the Eastern Mediterranean under his control, Alexander’s unyielding determination had secured a key strategic victory in his conquest of Persia.
