Accordingly, after allowing his ships a period of eleven days for nautical practice, and placing on board a number of his bravest soldiers,[14392] Alexander sailed out from Sidon at the head of his entire fleet, and made straight for Tyre in order of battle.  He himself in person commanded the right wing, the post of danger, since it held the open sea, and had under him the bulk of the Cyprian ships, with their commanders.  Pnytagoras of Salamis and Craterus led the left wing, which was composed mainly of the vessels furnished by the Phoenician towns upon the mainland, and held its course at no great distance from the shore.  The Tyrians, who had received no intelligence from without, saw with astonishment the great fleet, nearly three times as large as their own,[14393] bearing down upon them in orderly array, and challenging them to the combat.  They had not now the spirit of ancient times, when no disparity of force dismayed them.  Surprised and alarmed, they resolved to decline a battle, to remain within their ports, and to use their ships for blocking the entrances.  Alexander, advancing from the north, when he saw the mouth of the Sidonian harbour, which faced northwards, strongly guarded, did not attempt to force it, but anchored his vessels outside, and established a blockade, the maintenance of which he entrusted to the Cyprian squadron.  The next day he ordered the Phoenician ships to proceed southwards, and similarly block and watch the southern or Egyptian harbour.[14394] For himself, he landed upon the mole, and pitching his tent near the south-western corner, there established himself.[14395]

The mole had not advanced very much during his absence.  Vast efforts had been made to re-establish it, but they had not been attended with any great success.[14396] Whole trees, torn up by the roots, and with their branches still adhering to them, had been dragged to the water’s edge, and then precipitated into the strait;[14397] a layer of stones and mud had been placed upon them, to solidify them into a mass; on the top of this other trees had been placed, and the former process repeated.  But the Tyrians had met the new tactics with new methods.  They had employed divers to attach hooks to the boughs where they projected into the sea, and by sheer force had dragged the trees out from the superincumbent mass, bringing down in this way large portions of the structure.[14398] But with Alexander’s coming, and the retirement of the Tyrian fleet, all this was altered.  Alexander’s workmen were no longer impeded, except from the town, and in a short time the mole was completed across the channel and carried up to the very foot of the defences.  The new towers, which had replaced the burnt ones, were brought up close to the walls, and plied the new machines which Cyprian and Phoenician engineers had constructed for their new master.[14399] The battering of the wall began.  Engines moreover of a large size were placed on horse-transports furnished by