ea, as well as land. The doom of the city was now sealed, and the
Tyrians could offer no more serious obstructions. The engines were then
rolled along the mole to the walls, and a breach was at last made, and the
city was taken by assault. The citizens then barricaded the streets, and
fought desperately until they were slain. The surviving soldiers were
hanged, and the women and children sold as slaves. Still the city resisted
for seven months, and its capture was really the greatest effort of genius
that Alexander had shown, and furnished an example to Richelieu in the
siege of La Rochelle.

(M745) On the fall of this ancient and wealthy capital, whose pride and
wealth are spoken of in the Scriptures, Alexander received a second letter
from Darius, offering ten thousand talents, his daughter in marriage, with
the cession of all the provinces of his empire west of the Euphrates, for
the surrender of his family. To which the haughty and insolent conqueror
replied: "I want neither your money nor your cession. All your money and
territory are mine already, and you are tendering me a part instead of the
whole. If I choose to marry your daughter I _shall_ marry her, whether you
give her to me or not. Come hither to me, if you wish for friendship."

(M746) Darius now saw that he must risk another desperate battle, and
summoned all his hosts. Yet Alexander did not immediately march against
him, but undertook first the conquest of Egypt. Syria, Phoenicia, and
Palestine were now his, as well as Asia Minor. He had also defeated the
Persian fleet, and was master of all the islands of the AEgean. He stopped
on his way to Egypt to take Gaza, which held out against him, built on a
lofty artificial mound two hundred and fifty feet high, and encircled with
a lofty wall. The Macedonian engineers pronounced the place impregnable,
but the greater the difficulty the greater the eagerness of Alexander to
surmount it. He accordingly built a mound all around the city, as high as
that on which Gaza was built, and then rolled his engines to the wall,
effected a breach, and stormed the city, slew all the garrison, and sold
all the women and children for slaves. As for Batis, the defender of the
city, he was dragged by a chariot around the town, as Achilles, whom
Alexander imitated, had done to the dead body of Hector. The siege of
these two cities, Tyre and Gaza, occupied nine months, and was the hardest
fighting that Alexander ever encountered.