Meanwhile, the Greco-Phoenician fleet on the south side of the mole had burst the boom and other obstacles by which the Egyptian harbour was closed, and, attacking the ships within, had disabled some, and driven the rest ashore, thus gaining possession of the southern port and a ready access to the adjacent portion of the city.[14422] The Cyprians, moreover, on the north, had forced their way into the Sidonian harbour, which had no boom, and obtained an entrance into the town on that quarter.[14423] The defences were broken through in three places, and it might have been expected that resistance would have ceased.  But the gallant defenders still would not yield.  A large body assembled at the Agenorium, or temple of Agenor, and there made a determined stand, which continued till Alexander himself attacked them with his bodyguard, and slew almost the entire number.  Others, mounting upon the roofs of the houses, flung down stones and missiles of all kinds upon the Macedonians in the street.  A portion shut themselves up in their homes and perished by their own hands.  In the streets and squares there was a terrible carnage.  The Macedonians were infuriated by the length of the siege, the stubbornness of the resistance, and the fact that the Tyrians had in the course of the siege publicly executed, probably by way of sacrifice, a number of their prisoners upon the walls.  Those who died with arms in their hands are reckoned at eight thousand;[14424] two thousand more, who had been made prisoners, were barbarously crucified by command of Alexander round the walls of the city.[14425] None of the adult free males were spared, except the few who had taken refuge with Azemilcus the king in the temple of Melkarth, which Alexander professed greatly to revere, and a certain number whom the Sidonians, touched at last with pity, concealed on board their triremes.  The women, the children, and the slaves, to the number of thirty thousand,[14426] were sold to the highest bidder.

Having worked his will, and struck terror, as he hoped, into the hearts of all who might be thinking of resisting him, Alexander concluded the Tyrian episode of his career by a religious ceremony.[14427] Entering the city from the mole in a grand procession, accompanied by his entire force of soldiers, fully armed and arrayed, while his fleet also played its part in the scene, he proceeded to the temple of Melkarth in the middle of the town, and offered his much desired sacrifice to Hercules.  A gymnastic contest and a torch race formed a portion of the display.  To commemorate his victory, he dedicated and left in the temple the battering-ram which had made the first impression on the southern wall, together with a Tyrian vessel, used in the service of the god, which he had captured when he bore down upon the city from Sidon with his fleet.  Over the charred and half-ruined remnants of the city, into which he had introduced a certain number of colonists, chiefly Carians,[14428] he placed as ruler a member of a decayed branch of the royal family, a certain Abd-elonim, whom the Greeks called Ballonymos.[14429]