royed their city, and they have a right to consider me their
enemy, and to do all they can to oppose my progress, and to regain
their own lost existence and their former power." So he gave them
their liberty and sent them away with marks of consideration and
honor.

As the vast army of the Persian monarch had now been defeated, of
course none of the smaller kingdoms or provinces thought of resisting.
They yielded one after another, and Alexander appointed governors of
his own to rule over them. He advanced in this manner along the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, meeting with no obstruction
until he reached the great and powerful city of Tyre.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SIEGE OF TYRE.

B.C. 333

The city of Tyre.--Its situation and extent.--Pursuits of the
Tyrians.--Their great wealth and resources.--The walls of
Tyre.--Influence and power of Tyre.--Alexander hesitates in regard
to Tyre.--Presents from the Tyrians.--Alexander refused admittance
into Tyre.--He resolves to attack it.--Alexander's plan.--Its
difficulties and dangers.--Enthusiasm of the army.--Construction
of the pier.--Progress of the work.--Counter operations of the
Tyrians.--Structures erected on the pier.--The Tyrians fit up a fire
ship.--The ship fired and set adrift.--The conflagration.--Effects
of the storm.--The work began anew.--Alexander collects a
fleet.--Warlike engines.--Double galleys.--The women removed from
Tyre.--The siege advances.--Undaunted courage of the Tyrians.--A
breach made.--The assault.--Storming the city.--Barbarous cruelties
of Alexander.--Changes in Alexander's character.--His harsh message
to Darius.--Alexander's reply to Parmenio.--The hero rises, but the
man sinks.--Lysimachus.--Alexander's adventure in the mountains.--What
credits to be given to the adventure.

The city of Tyre stood on a small island, three or four miles in
diameter,[B] on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It was,
in those days, the greatest commercial city in the world, and it
exercised a great maritime power by means of its fleets and ships,
which traversed every part of the Mediterranean.

[Footnote B: There are different statements in respect to the size of
this island, varying from three to nine miles in circumference.]

Tyre had been built originally on the main-land; but in some of the
wars which it had to encounter with the kings of Babylon in the East,
this old city had been abandoned by the inhabitants, and a new one