The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) (9 page)

At this juncture a distinguished Milesian named Glaucippus appeared before Alexander with a proposal from the people of the town and the foreign mercenaries who were chiefly responsible for guarding it in the Persian interest: this was that they were willing to grant free use of their harbours, and free entry within their walls, to Alexander and the Persians alike, and that on these terms the siege should be raised. Alexander’s reply to this suggestion was to order Glaucippus to get back to his friends at the double and tell them to be ready to defend themselves at dawn next morning. He then proceeded to order up his siege engines; the walls were bombarded at close range, long stretches of the fortifications breached with batteringrams; he then brought his men up, to be ready to get a foothold at any point where the defences were sufficiently gapped or weakened to allow an entry, while the Persians at Mycale were so near that the progress of operations against their friends was almost visible to their eyes.

When Nicanor’s men in Lade saw that Alexander’s assault had begun, they got their ships under way and, rowing along shore, made for the harbour at Miletus, where they brought up in the narrowest part of the entrance, each vessel close aboard its neighbour, so that the harbour was effectively closed to the Persian fleet and the Milesians could no longer hope for assistance from that quarter. The Milesians and the mercenary troops in the town were already hard pressed by Alexander’s attack; and now, at this fresh development, some of them plunged into the sea and paddled themselves over on their upturned shields to an islet (it has no name) just off the town, while others made a desperate effort to escape in boats before the Macedonian warships arrived; but
they were too late and were caught at the harbour entrance. Most of them, however, were killed within the walls.

The town was now in Alexander’s hands, and his next move was to turn his attention to the men who had escaped to the little island. Its shore was steep, and landing on it would be much like scaling a wall; so to facilitate the operation he had scaling-ladders fixed in the bows of his ships – when, however, he saw that the fugitives were preparing to fight to the death, he was moved to pity by their courage and loyalty and refrained from action on condition of their serving in future under his own command. They were Greek mercenaries, about 300 in number. All the Milesians who had not been killed when the town was taken he let go free.

The Persians continued for a while to use Mycale as a base for annoying the Greek fleet at Miletus. Every day they made a movement towards it in the hope of provoking a conflict; at night they remained in their station, which was not, however, a comfortable one, because they were obliged to water their ships from the Maeander, which was a long way off.
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Alexander, still keeping his fleet on guard in the harbour, to prevent the Persians from forcing an entrance, sent Philotas round by land to Mycale with the mounted troops and three companies of infantry, with orders to stop the Persians getting ashore. The result was that lack of water and other supplies reduced the Persian crews to what was, to all intents and purposes, a state of siege; so they sailed for Samos, filled up there with whatever they needed, and returned to Miletus. Off the harbour they took up battle stations with the main body of their fleet, hoping to lure the Macedonians out into deep water, while five of their ships
carried on into the sheltered water between Lade and the Macedonian position on shore. There was a chance, they thought, of surprising Alexander’s ships with no one aboard, because they had been told that most of the crews had gone off on various jobs, such as collecting firewood or foraging or fetching supplies. Some of the men were actually away, but there were enough left on duty for Alexander, when he saw the five enemy vessels approaching, to man ten of his own and send them out on the instant with orders to ram. The five Persians found the hostile approach of the Greek ships by no means according to plan; at first sight of them, still some way off, they put about and hurried back to rejoin the fleet. One of them, manned by Iassians, was a slow ship and failed to get away; she and her crew were taken, but the other four kept ahead of the pursuers and safely rejoined the fleet. As a result of this episode the Persian fleet left Miletus, with nothing to show for the time it had spent there.

Alexander now decided to disband his fleet. He had not, at the moment, the money for maintaining it; he knew that it was no match for the Persian navy, and he had no wish to subject any part of his strength, in ships or men, to the risk of disaster.
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Moreover, now that his army was master of the continent, he was well aware that a. fleet was no longer of any use to him: by seizing the coastal towns he could reduce the Persian navy to impotence, for they would then have no port on the Asian coast which they could use, and no source of replacement for their crews. Here, then, was the point of his interpretation of the omen of the eagle – it meant that he would ‘conquer the ships from the land’.

Having settled affairs at Miletus, he started for Caria on a report that the Persians were in Halicarnassus with a considerable force of native and mercenary troops. The towns which lay upon his route surrendered without resistance, but on arriving at Halicarnassus he took up a position rather more than half a mile from the town in expectation of a long siege; for apart from the natural strength of the place, due to its geographical situation, any deficiencies in the means of assuring its safety had long before been supplied in person by Memnon, who had already been appointed by Darius controller of lower Asia and commander of the whole fleet; a powerful force of Persian troops and mercenaries had been left to garrison the town, and the presence of warships in the harbour meant that the sailors, too, could lend a helping hand, should the need for action arise.
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On the first day Alexander moved up towards the fortifications on the side of the town which faces Mylasa. As he approached the gates the defenders made a sortie and flung weapons at long range. A counter-attack by Alexander’s men checked them without difficulty, and they were driven back within the walls. A few days later, with a force consisting of the Guards, the Companion cavalry, and the infantry battalions commanded by Amyntas, Perdiccas, and Meleager, supported by the Agrianes and archers, Alexander moved round to the part of the town which faces Myndus, his intention being to reconnoitre the state of the defences in that sector in the hope of finding that they offered an easier approach.
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There was also, he thought, a chance that by an unexpected raid he might
take Myndus, the possession of which would greatly facilitate the siege of Halicarnassus. The plan was all the more attractive because some people in Myndus had suggested that they might open their gates to him if he came under cover of darkness. He accordingly took them at their word and approached the town about midnight. There was, however, no sign of surrender. Alexander, who had expected the place to be betrayed into his hands, was not prepared for a siege: he had brought with him neither rams, nor artillery, nor ladders; nevertheless, ill-equipped as he was, he ordered the Macedonian infantry to advance and begin sapping operations. They destroyed one fort, but its fall did not leave the wall defenceless; the troops in the town put up a vigorous resistance and, with the help of strong reinforcements which arrived by sea from Halicarnassus, successfully frustrated the surprise attack. Alexander accordingly, forced to withdraw with his object unaccomplished, turned his attention once more to the siege of Halicarnassus.

To enable him to bring into position his siege-engines – the towers from which to bombard the defenders of the wall, the artillery and battering-rams for breaching the defences – Alexander began by filling in the trench, about 45 feet wide and 23 feet deep, which had been dug outside the town. The work was done without difficulty and the towers soon brought into position. After dark a party of Halicarnassians made an attempt to set fire to the Macedonian siege artillery, including the towers, which were either already in position or about to be brought up; but the Macedonians on guard duty, with the help of others who were awakened by the noise during the action and joined them, had little trouble in driving them back within the town’s defences. They lost 170 men, including Neoptolemus who, among others, had deserted to
Darius.
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He was the son of Arrabaeus and brother of Amyntas. Alexander’s losses were about 16 killed and 300 wounded – the comparatively large number of wounded being due to the fact that the attack took place in the dark, when it is more difficult to defend oneself.

A few days after this incident two Macedonian infantrymen of Perdiccas’ battalion were drinking together in their tent and telling each other what stout fellows they were; as they warmed up with the drink, each bragging as hard as he could go, it soon developed into a competition between the pair of them, until at last they seized their weapons and, without any serious intention of risking their lives in a fight, but simply to prove to each other what mighty fellows they were, sallied out on their own to attack the wall of the town on the high ground facing Mylasa. Some soldiers in the town saw the foolish pair coming and promptly went for them. But the Macedonians killed those who came near, and hurled missiles at those who remained at a distance, although the Halicarnassians outnumbered them and the lie of the land was greatly in their favour since they could both shoot and move forward to the assault from high ground. More men from Perdiccas’ battalion soon came hurrying to meet this threat, and, on the other side, reinforcements from the town. There was a sharp struggle, until once again the Macedonians succeeded in driving the attacking force back within their gates. Indeed, the town itself was very nearly taken; the walls, at the moment, were inadequately defended, and the collapse of two towers together with the intervening stretch of wall would have offered an easy entrance, had the assault been made in strength. Moreover a third tower had been badly damaged
and might easily have been brought down by mining; but before anything could be done, the men in the town made good the breach in their defences by building, from inside, a crescent-shaped wall of brick – and many hands made light work of it.

On the following day Alexander brought up his siege artillery to attack it, and his move was promptly countered by a party from the town. Their object was to set fire to his assault machines, and they succeeded in burning a part of the screen near the walls and of one of the wooden towers, though everything else was saved by the men under Philotas and Hellanicus, who were on guard there. During the raid Alexander appeared upon the scene in person, and the result was that the raiding party dropped their firebrands – most of them throwing away their weapons as well – and beat a hurried retreat into the town.

In spite of this set-back, in the first phases of the ensuing struggle the defenders had the advantage: their position, on the higher ground, was a commanding one; the troops forming a screen in front of Alexander’s assault machines could be met by volleys of missiles not only in the direct line of their advance, but also from the flanks, where they could be enfiladed from the towers still standing on both sides of the breach in the original wall; indeed as they approached the newly built section, they could be shot at practically from the rear as well.

A few days passed before Alexander renewed his assault on the new brick wall inside the town. This time he took personal charge of the operation. His move was met by a counter-attack in full force from the town, by one division at the breach in the wall, where Alexander was, and by another at the Tripylum, or Triple Gate, where the Macedonians least expected it. Flaming brands and other inflammable material were flung at the assault machines
to set them alight and spread the blaze; but the men under Alexander’s immediate command made a strong counterattack; the catapults mounted on towers kept up a continuous pressure by hurling heavy stones; javelins flew thick and fast, and the defenders of the town were without difficulty beaten back and forced to withdraw once more within their defences. The attempt had been a bold one, carried out with a considerable force, and their losses were, in proportion, heavy: some were killed in hand-to-hand fighting with the Macedonians, others among the debris of the breached wall: they could not get through because the gap was too narrow for such a press of men, and they could not get over because the fallen blocks of stone were an almost insuperable impediment.

The force which had made its sortie at the Tripylum was met by Ptolemy, Captain of the Royal Guard, with the troops under Addaeus and Timander, supported by light infantry. These had no greater trouble than the others in repelling the attack from the town. Like that of their comrades, the retreat of this force, too, was disastrous: for as they withdrew across a narrow bridge over the dyke, the bridge collapsed under the excessive weight. Many were flung into the dyke and were either trampled to death by their comrades or shot from above by the Macedonians. But the worst slaughter was at the gates of the town, which were shut too soon in blind fear of letting in the Macedonians on the heels of the fugitives; in this way the defenders shut out large numbers of their friends, who were cut down by the Macedonians right under the walls. Once again the town was almost in Alexander’s hands; but even in this extremity he wished to save it, if only the people gave any sign of willingness to come to terms. So he called off the assault.

In this action Halicarnassus lost about 1,000 men, Alexander
about forty, among whom were Ptolemy, Captain of the Royal Guard, Clearchus in command of the archers, Addaeus, a chiliarch – or battalion commander – and other well-known Macedonians.

The Persian commanders Orontobates and Memnon now met to discuss the situation. It was clear that in present circumstances it would not be possible to hold out much longer; part of the wall was already gone, other parts were seriously damaged, and in the recent sorties they had lost heavily, many men having been either killed or put out of action by wounds. Accordingly, somewhere near midnight they had the magazines set on fire together with the wooden tower which had been constructed as a counter to the enemy assault machines. The houses near the wall were also fired, while flames from the fiercely burning tower and magazines were spread by the wind to other buildings, which were soon ablaze as well. Their own surviving forces withdrew to the Arconnese, an island stronghold, and the high ground known as Salmakis.