island city, which was their true capital, and their pride and glory, unmolested.  But Alexander could not brook anything that in any degree savoured of opposition to his will.  When therefore, on his expressing a wish to sacrifice to Melkarth in their island town, the Tyrians declined to receive him within the walls, and suggested that his pious design might be sufficiently accomplished by his making his intended offering in Palae-Tyrus, where there was a temple of the same god, which was older (they said) and more venerable than their own, Alexander’s pride was touched, and he became violently enraged.[14369] 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,[14370] but the reproach scarcely appears to be deserved.  They had on previous occasions resisted for years the entire power of Assyria, and of Babylon; they naturally deemed themselves only assailable by sea; their fortifications were of immense strength; and they possessed a navy much superior to any of which Alexander could boast at the time when he threatened them.  Their own vessels were eighty in number; those of their kinsmen upon the continent were likewise eighty; Cyprus, which for centuries had been closely allied with them, and which was more than half Phoenician in blood, could furnish a hundred and twenty; Carthage, if she chose, could send to their aid, without any difficulty, as many as two hundred.[14371] Alexander had never been able to collect from the Greek states which owned his sway a fleet of more than one hundred and sixty sail; and, having disbanded this fleet, he could not readily have mustered from the cities and countries accessible to him, exclusive of Cyprus and Phoenicia, so many as a hundred.[14372] The Tyrians, when they took their resolution to oppose Alexander, had a right to expect that their kindred would either assist them, or at any rate not serve against them, and that thus they would be sure to maintain their supremacy at sea.  As for Alexander’s design to join the island Tyre to the continent by means of a mole, they cannot have had the slightest suspicion of it, since no work of the kind had ever previously been accomplished, or even attempted; for the demonstration of Xerxes against Salamis was not seriously intended.[14373] They naturally counted on the struggle being entirely by sea, and may well have thought that on their own element they would not be worsted.  Even if the continental towns forsook them and went over to the enemy, why might they not do as they had done in Shalmaneser’s time, defeat their unnatural countrymen, and retain their naval supremacy?  Moreover, if they made a gallant fight, might not Persia be expected to second their efforts?  Would she not attack Alexander from the flanks of Lebanon, intercept his supplies, cut off his foragers, and make his position untenable; the Tyrians could scarcely anticipate that Persia would sit with folded hands, a calm spectator of a seven months’ siege, and do absolutely nothing.