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Updated: June 20, 2025
The number of their triremes amounted to 120; and Alexander, having now under his command a fleet of 224 sail, could no longer feel any doubt of being able to wrest the supremacy at sea from the unfortunate Tyrians.
Nehemiah finds that these Tyrians are doing a grand traffic in salted fish, especially on the Sabbath day. The Jews loved fish, and always have loved it. How they enjoyed it in Egypt, how they longed for it in the wilderness! 'We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely. So they sighed, and murmured, as they thought of their lost luxuries.
The road, which in some places impends over the water, has been cut with great labour through the rock, and is said by tradition to have been the work of Alexander the Great. Previously, both here and at the Ras-en-Nakura, the ascent was by steps, and the passes were known as the Climaces Tyriorum, or "Staircases of the Tyrians."
The engines approached nearer and nearer to the walls, until the battering rams bore directly upon them, and breaches began to be made. At length one great breach on the southern side was found to be "practicable," as they call it. Alexander began to prepare for the final assault, and the Tyrians saw before them the horrible prospect of being taken by storm. Still they would not submit.
Was it an honour to the Tyrians that they were counted amongst the builders of the Temple when Hiram sent to Solomon things necessary for that work? The historians give the reason of it.
The Tyrians united with the Persians against Alexander, for the purpose of preventing the invasion of Persia; this having incensed the conqueror, still further enraged by their refusal to admit him within their walls, he resolved upon the destruction of this commercial city.
For they said that Philip, the general of his army, had betrayed the royal palace and the Roman forces that were in Jerusalem, and that it was done by his command. When Vespasian heard of this report, he rebuked the Tyrians for abusing a man who was both a king and a friend to the Romans; but he exhorted the king to send Philip to Rome, to answer for what he had done before Nero.
The Tyrians now informed him that they could not admit any foreigners within their walls, and that, if he wished to sacrifice to Melcart, he would find another and more ancient shrine in Old Tyre, on the mainland. Alexander indignantly dismissed the Tyrian ambassadors, and announced his intention of laying siege to their city. The Tyrians probably deemed it impregnable.
Just then a beautiful queen, attended by a whole troop of nymphs, came into the temple. This lady was Dido; her husband, Sichæus, had been King of Tyre, till he was murdered by his brother, Pygmalion, who meant to have married her; but she fled from him with a band of faithful Tyrians and all her husband's treasure, and had landed on the north coast of Africa.
But Alexander could not brook anything that in any degree savoured of opposition to his will. Dismissing the envoys with angry threats, he at once began preparations for an attack upon the town. The Tyrians have been accused of extreme rashness and folly in not making an unqualified submission to the demands preferred by Alexander, but the reproach scarcely appears to be deserved.
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