longing to any particular nation, as
the common city of all nations and the centre of their commerce.

Alexander thought it necessary, both for his glory and his interest, to
take this city. The spring was now coming on. Tyre was at that time
seated on an island of the sea, about a quarter of a league from the
continent. It was surrounded by a strong wall, a hundred and fifty feet
high, which the waves of the sea washed; and the Carthaginians, a colony
from Tyre, a mighty people, and sovereigns of the ocean, promised to
come to the assistance of their parent State. Encouraged, therefore, by
these favorable circumstances, the Tyrians determined not to surrender,
but to hold out the place to the last extremity. This resolution,
however imprudent, was certainly magnanimous, but it was soon after
followed by an act which was as blamable as the other was praiseworthy.

Alexander was desirous of gaining the place rather by treaty than by
force of arms, and with this in view sent heralds into the town with
offers of peace; but the inhabitants were so far from listening to his
proposals, or endeavoring to avert his resentment by any kind of
concession, that they actually killed his ambassadors and threw their
bodies from the top of the walls into the sea. It is easy to imagine
what effect so shocking an outrage must produce in a mind like
Alexander's. He instantly resolved to besiege the place, and not to
desist until he had made himself master of it and razed it to the
ground.

As Tyre was divided from the continent by an arm of the sea, there was
necessity for filling up the intermediate space with a bank or pier,
before the place could be closely invested. This work, accordingly, was
immediately undertaken and in a great measure completed; when all the
wood, of which it was principally composed, was unexpectedly burned by
means of a fire-ship sent in by the enemy. The damage, however, was very
soon repaired, and the mole rendered more perfect than formerly, and
carried nearer to the town, when all of a sudden a furious tempest
arose, which, undermining the stonework that supported the wood, laid
the whole at once in the bottom of the sea.

Two such disasters, following so closely on the heels of each other,
would have cooled the ardor of any man except Alexander, but nothing
could daunt his invincible spirit, or make him relinquish an enterprise
he had once undertaken. He, therefore, resolved to prosecute the siege;
and