They also heated sand over fires and poured it from the battlements on all who approached the foot of the wall; this, penetrating between the armour and the skin, inflicted such intolerable pain that the sufferers were forced to tear off their coats of mail, whereupon they were easily transfixed by arrows or long lances.[14411] With scythes they cut the ropes and thongs by means of which the rams were worked;[14412] and at last, armed with hatchets, they sprang from the battlements upon the Macedonian boarding-bridges, and in a hand-to-hand combat defeated and drove back their assailants.[14413] Finally, when, despite of all their efforts, the outer wall began to give way, they constructed an inner wall to take its place, broader and stronger than the other.[14414]

Alexander, after a time, became convinced that his endeavours to take the city from the mole were hopeless, and turned his attention to the sea defences, north and south of the mole, which were far less strong than those which he had hitherto been attacking.[14415] He placed his best engines and his boarding-bridges upon ships, and proceeded to batter the sea walls in various places.  On the south side, near the Egyptian harbour, he found a weak place, and concentrating his efforts upon it, he succeeded in effecting a large breach.[14416] He then gave orders for a general assault.[14417] The two fleets were commanded to force simultaneously the entrances to the two harbours; other vessels to make demonstrations against the walls at all approachable points; the army collected on the mole to renew its assaults; while he himself, with his trustiest soldiers, delivered the main attack at the southern breach.[14418] Two vessels were selected for the purpose.  On one, which was that of Coenus, he embarked a portion of the phalanx; on the other, which was commanded by Admetus, he placed his bodyguard, himself accompanying it.  The struggle was short when once the boarding-bridges were thrown across and rested on the battered wall.  Fighting under the eye of their king, the Macedonians carried all before them, though not without important losses.  Admetus himself, who was the first to step on to the wall, received a spear thrust, and was slain.[14419] But the soldiers who were following close behind him maintained their footing, and in a little time got possession of several towers, with the spaces between them.  Alexander was among the foremost of those who mounted the breach,[14420] and was for a while hotly engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the enemy.  When those who resisted him were slain or driven off, he directed his troops to seize the royal palace, which abutted on the southern wall, and through it make their entrance into the town.[14421]