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to furrender, he was afraid those he fhould fend now, might meet with the fame, or more fevere treatment. Being therefore diverted, by this apprehenfion, from all thoughts of making up matters by way of treaty, and fully apprized, that his reputation, and the future progrefs of his arms, entirely depended upon the fuccefs of the prefent undertaking, he reaffumed, with feeming chearfulness, the work; repaired, with incredible expedition, the breach, which the sea had made in the mole; and, having brought it again almost home to the city, began to batter it with all forts of warlike engines, while the archers and flingers haraffed, without interruption, those who defended it, in order to drive them from their pofts. But the Tyrians, by means of a new contrivance of wheels with many spokes, which, being whirled about with an engine, either fhattered in pieces the enemies darts and arrows, or broke their force, covered themselves against the aggreffors, and killed great numbers of them, without fuffering any confiderable lofs on their own fide. In the mean time, the wall began to yield to the violence of the rams that battered it night and day without interruption. In this dilemma, the befieged, setting all hands to work, raised, in a very fhort time, a new wall, ten cubits thick, and five cubits distant from the former; and, by filling up the empty space between the two, with earth and stones, kept the Macedonians a long while employed, ere they could make, with all their engines, the least impreffion on this new fortification. Alexander, having joined many of his fhips together, and mounted them with a vast number of battering engines, befides those he had already placed in the mole, fucceeded at laft in the attempt, and made a breach an hundred feet wide. Yet when he advanced to the affault, in hopes of breaking into the city over the ruins, the Macedonians, though encouraged with the presence of their king, were forced to give ground, and retire with great lofs to their ships. Alexander defigned to renew the attack next morning; but, the breach having been repaired by the Tyrians during the night, he perceived himself no further advanced than when he first began to batter the walls. He now refolved to change his measures: having brought the mole home to the wall, he caused several towers to be built equal in height to the battlements. These towers he filled with the moft brave and refolute men in his army, who, purfuant to his directions, having formed a bridge with large planks refting with one end on the towers, and with the

other

other on the top of the ramparts, endeavoured, fword in hand, to gain the wall; but could not prevail, being opposed by the Tyrians with unparalleled bravery, who used weapons with which the Macedonians were altogether unacquainted. These were three-forked hooks, faftened with a cord (one end whereof they held), which, being thrown at a little diftance, ftuck in the enemies fhields, and gave the Tyrians an opportunity, either of plucking their targets out of their hands, and expofing them, without defence, to showers of darts and arrows; or, if they were unwilling to part with their fhields, of pulling them headlong out of the towers: fome, by throwing a kind of fishing-nets upon the Macedonians that were engaged on the bridges, entangled their hands, fo that they could neither defend themselves, or offend the enemy; others, by means of long poles armed with iron hooks, drew them off the bridges, and dafhed their brains out against the walls, or on the caufey. In the mean time, a great many engines, placed on the walls, played inceffantly upon the aggreffors with maffy balls of red-hot iron, which swept away entire ranks at once. But what most of all difheartened the Macedonians in the attack, and forced them, at laft, to give it over, was, the fcorching sand, which the Tyrians, by a new contrivance, fhowered upon them: this fand (which was thrown in red-hot fhields of iron, or brafs) infinuating itself within their breastplates, and coats of mail, tormented them to fuch a degree, that many, finding no other relief, threw themfelves headlong into the fea; and others, dying in the anguish of inexpreffible torments, ftruck, with their desperate cries, a terror into their companions. This execution occafioned unspeakable confusion among the affailants, and gave new courage to the Tyrians, who, now leaving the walls, charged the enemy hand to hand, on his own. bridges, with fuch resolution, that Alexander, seeing his men give ground, thought fit to found the retreat, and, by that expedient, fave, in fome degree, the reputation of his Macedonians. Such defperate attacks were frequently renewed by the aggreffors, and always sustained with the fame unbroken and undaunted courage by the befieged. At length Alexander began to entertain fome thoughts of abandoning the enterprize, and continuing his march into Egypt; but, confidering the dangerous confequences that must have attended fuch a refolution, he determined to proceed with the fiege at all adventures, though, of all his captains, none was found, except Amyntas,

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Amyntas, who approved of that determination. Having therefore exhorted his troops to perfevere, and encouraged them with affurances of fuccefs; he furrounded the city with his fleet, and began to batter it on all fides. Mean while, one of the Tyrians, dreaming that Apollo defigned to forfake them, and go over to Alexander, they faftened his ftatue, with golden chains, to the altar of Hercules. This coloffus belonged formerly to the city of Gela in Sicily, and was fent from thence by the Carthaginians, when they took Gela, to Tyre, their mother city. In this Apollo the Tyrians greatly confided; and therefore, upon the rumour that he was to abandon them, they had recourse even to chains, in order to prevent his departure; but, their utter ruin being already decreed by the true God, and foretold by his prophets, the confidence they placed in their idols could not avert the impending judgment. They were deftined to destruction, and deftruction was their fate; for, Alexander, having, at last, battered down the walls, and taken the town by ftorm, after feven months fiege, fully executed the fentence, which the Tyrians had, by their pride, and other vices, drawn down upon themselves and their country. The city was burnt down to the ground, and the inhabitants (excepting those whom the Sidonians fecretly conveyed away in their fhips) were either deftroyed, or enflaved by the conqueror, who, upon his firft entering the city, put eight thousand to the fword; caused two thousand of those he took prifoners, to be crucified, and fold the reft, to the number of thirty thousand, fays Arrian, for flaves. His cruelty towards the two thoufand that were crucified, was highly unbecoming the character of a generous conqueror; and reflects an eternal difgrace upon his fame. Alexander treated them thus for no other reafon, than because they had fought with fuch bravery and refolution in defence of their country; but, to palliate the true cause of fo bafe an action, he gave out, that he acted thus to revenge, upon the prefent Tyrians, the crime which their forefathers committed, when they murdered their masters, as we have related above; and that, being flaves by origin, crucifixion was the punishment due to them. To make this pretence look the more plausible, he faved all the defcendents of Strato, as not being involved in that guilt; and, among them, king Azelmic; who, in the beginning

Tyre taken and defiroyed,

× Diod. Sic. lib. xiii. p. 390. xxvii. xxviii.

y Ifa. xxiii. Ezek. xxvi.

of

of the fiege, was out with his fleet upon a naval expedition, in conjunction with Autophradates the Perfian admiral; but had haftened home, as foon as he was acquainted with the danger of his country. After the city was reduced, he took fanctuary in the temple of Hercules, and was not only spared by the conqueror, but restored to the throne, after Alexander had re-peopled the place; for, having thus cleared it of its former inhabitants, he planted it a-new with colonies drawn from the neighbouring parts; and thenceforth styled himself the founder of Tyre, a city which he had moft ungenerously deftroyed. Upon taking the city, he unchained Apollo, returning him thanks for his intention of coming over to the Macedonians. He also offered facrifice to Hercules, and then continued his march into Egypt 2.

The Kings of Arad.

Arad, or Aradus, had its kings, as well as Sidon and Tyre; but we find three of them only mentioned in hiftory, namely, Arbal, his fon Narbal, who served under Xerxes in his great expedition, and Geroftratus, who reigned many years after that period. He ferved Darius against Alexander, joining the Perfian fleet, as other Phoenician and Cypriot princes did, till, hearing his fon Strato had put a crown of gold upon the head of Alexander, and given up to him the island-city of Aradus, that of Marathus on the main land over-against it, as alfo Yr. of Fl. Mariammia, or Mariame, and whatever elfe belonged Ante Chr. to the Aradian dominion, he thought it moft for his interest to approve, seemingly at least, of what his son had done, and to make his fubmiffion to the Macedonian ".

z Diod. Sic. ad Olymp. 112. ann. 1. Plutarch. in Alexand. Q. Curt. lib. iv. cap. 5. 6. 11. 15. Arrian. lib. ii. p. 49. Justin. lib. xi. cap. 20. & lib. xviii. cap. 34. Jofeph. Antiq. lib. xi. cap. ultim. a Herodot. lib. vii. cap. 98. de Exped. Alexand. Mag. lib. ii. p. 119.

b Arrian.

& Q. Curt. lib. iv. cap. 1.

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VOL. II.

E

CHAP.

Defign of this chap

ter.

Promife de

fcribed. Various

names.

CHA P. VII.

The Hiftory of the Jews, from the Birth of
Abraham to the Babylonish Captivity.

W

E have, in the preceding volume, carried on thet hiftory of the world, and particularly of the defcendents of Shem, from the flood to the birth of Abraham; and are now to continue it in the family of that celebrated patriarch, from that remarkable epoch in which. he was called, by the divine Providence, out of his native country, into the Promifed Land, to that fatal period at which his defcendents were, by the fame divine appointment, expelled out of it, and configned to a severe feventy years captivity in Babylon, for their ingratitude, difobe dience, vice, and apoitacy.

SECT. I.

The Geography of Paleftine, or Holy Land.

Land of PALESTINE was firft called the Land of Canaan, of Chanaan, from Noah's grandfon, by whom it was peopled but it has fince been more diftinguished by other appellations; fuch as the Land of Promife, the Land of God, the Land of Ifrael, the Holy Land, and fometimes, by way of pre-eminence, The Land. It hath again been called Palestine, from the Paleftines, or Philiftines, who poffeffed great part of it; and Judæa, or Judæa-Palestina, from Judah, whofe tribe was the most confiderable of the twelve, and poffeffed the fineft and moft fertile part of the whole. Chriftians, as well as Jews, have dignified it with the title of Holy Land ; partly on account of its metropolis, fuppofed to have been. the centre of God's worship, and his peculiar habitation; but chiefly for its being the native country of Jefus Chrift, and the fcene on which he accomplished the great work and Judea. of our redemption. The name of judæa it did not affume till after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish cap-. tivity, though it had been styled, long before, the kingdom of Judah, in oppofition to that of Ifrael, which revolted from it under Jeroboam, in the reign of Rehoboam,

Whence fyl ed Holy Land,

the

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