The Sieges of Alexander the Great

by Stephen English

  Alexander approached the city from the northeast and made camp around 1km from the Mylasa gate. This was the sector that would bear the brunt of the Alexander’s siege operations. The first day of the siege was something of a victory for the defenders, and is illustrative of Memnon’s tactics. The Macedonians had, apparently, approached too close to the walls; Memnon immediately saw an opportunity to strike the first blow. He launched a sortie, largely using missile troops to allow them the opportunity of getting back within the cities walls as soon as the Macedonians were able to organize their own counter-attack.

  Figure 1: Sketch of the Siege of Halicarnassus

  Several days later, Alexander took a substantial force consisting of the hypaspists, Companion Cavalry, the heavy infantry taxeis of Amyntas, Perdiccas and Meleager, along with the Agrianians and archers, to the west of the city with the intention of determining if the walls in that sector were weaker, and weather an assault in that sector would likely prove more profitable. Alexander apparently also hoped to capture Myndus, a city on the western end of the Halicarnassus peninsula, possession of which would have made the siege of Halicarnassus less problematic. Dissidents within the city had previously made contact with Alexander and offered to open the city gates if he came under cover of darkness. Alexander approached the city at around midnight according to Arrian, but the gates remained closed; the rebels had evidently been discovered and their plan foiled. Despite being utterly unprepared for a siege, possessing neither artillery, rams nor scaling ladders, Alexander ordered sapping operations to commence against the city and he succeeded in bringing down one of the city forts. This use of sapping is the first time in Alexander’s career that he attempted such a device, and it proved partially successful, with the collapse of the tower. The fall of the fort did not, however, compromise the integrity of the defensive wall, and the defenders were soon reinforced by mercenaries arriving by sea from Halicarnassus. Alexander was forced, no doubt with a considerable degree of frustration, to abandon the attempted siege.80

  It seems that the Macedonians made a number of unsuccessful, and probably rather half-hearted, attempts to capture Halicarnassus without the benefits of siege equipment. It was painfully apparent to Alexander that without artillery pieces, the fortress was simply too strong to be stormed. In order to bring his siege train from Miletus to Halicarnassus as quickly as possible, Alexander took a tremendous risk: he had his siege engines loaded onto the remaining ships that were not disbanded and sailed from Miletus to Halicarnassus, where they were unloaded and moved into position without incident. This is a quite remarkable statement about ancient navies. The Persians had a force of 400 warships stationed in and around the harbour of Halicarnassus, and yet the Athenian vessels, whose crews we know were of dubious quality, were still able to evade the Persians and land their cargo. They were also, evidently, able to leave the vicinity of the city without incident. It is difficult to defend Alexander’s risk on this point, Miletus was very close to Halicarnassus, and the land route was in Alexander’s hands. Why take the risk of losing, either in battle or betrayal, the Athenian hostages along with his siege train? This decision is of little tactical value and was an unnecessary risk by the young king.

  The arrival of the siege engines filled the Macedonians with renewed vigour, and they set about filling the northern and eastern sections of the moat, so as to allow the close approach of rams and towers, as well as direct assault from scaling ladders. Arrian tells us that the moat was filled in without incident, and the towers were brought into a position from which the assault proper would begin the following day. During the night, Memnon again tried to gain the initiative in the siege by launching a daring night time sortie in an attempt to burn the siege engines and towers that it was apparent were about to bombard the walls. Once these men were engaged, the noise of the encounter, amplified by the fact it was night, drew the attention of the men of the hypaspists corps, who drove the attackers back with relative ease. Memnon suffered some 170 casualties during the attempt, with Alexander losing only 16 killed and 300 wounded. Arrian tells us that the disproportionately high number of wounded troops was due to the encounter taking place in the dark ‘when it is more difficult to defend oneself’.81

  After this encounter, the defenders busied themselves in continuing to strengthen the defences, whilst the besiegers made ever more siege engines in preparation for the start of the direct assault against the walls. Arrian tells us that a few days after Memnon’s sortie, although in reality it could well have been a couple of weeks, two drunken soldiers from Perdiccas’ taxis advanced alone towards the walls in a drunken attempt to prove who was the braver.82 They evidently made a number of approaches to the walls, but always stayed out of missile range. As time went on, however, perhaps under the influence of ever greater quantities of un-watered wine, they picked up their weapons and attacked the wall on the high ground facing Mylasa. Arrian tells us that they had no intention of actually forcing a fight, simply intending to show ‘what mighty fellows they were’. The defenders watched the Macedonians for a while as they repeatedly approached the walls whilst unarmed, but not close enough to allow the defenders to fire upon them. As soon as the Macedonians took up their weapons and attacked the walls, Memnon sortied against them with a far larger body of men. These two foolish Macedonians were quickly killed, but Memnon’s men did not retreat into the safety of the city. They started to fire missile weapons against the Macedonians in their camp, safe in the belief that they were on higher ground and close enough to the gates to run for safety if required. The attack against the camp prompted the Macedonians to rally and launch their own attack against Memnon’s position.

  The initial Macedonian response was similar to that of Memnon, to maintain a distance and hurl missiles at the attackers. This act of not rushing into the assault after seeing two fellow Macedonians killed is illustrative of the discipline of the Macedonian heavy infantry, although the very fact of the two attacking the walls individually tells us that this discipline was neither iron-clad nor was it universal, especially when wine was involved. Arrian tells us that the Halicarnasians who came too close to the Macedonians were quickly killed, suggesting that they were not as disciplined as the Macedonians in staying out of missile range.83

  The position that Memnon had taken up gave them a significant tactical advantage: they were on higher ground, which meant that their missile weapons could effectively travel slightly further, whilst at the same time being in an advantageous position if any direct attack came.

  More Macedonians of Perdiccas’ taxis formed up behind those hurling missiles, and at the same time more of the Halicarnassians joined those on high ground outside of the city. The walls facing the Macedonian camp should also have been well stocked with defenders, but apparently this was not the case; evidently most of the available manpower in that sector of the city had been requisitioned to take part in the sortie. This lack of defenders was not immediately significant, but it was to be the cause of the city almost falling to Alexander as the forward troops fell back to the city after a brief skirmish. The Halicarnassians outnumbered the Macedonians immediately outside the walls, again indicating that this was a major commitment of men by Memnon. What had started as a boasting contest between two drunken Macedonians, very quickly escalated into a major engagement for both sides.

  When the Macedonians were sufficiently organized, they attacked the Halicarnassians on the hill and quickly drove them back, despite the tactical disadvantage that the hill represented. The Halicarnassians were quickly driven back within the gates of the city, and the gates were only just closed in time to prevent the Macedonians gaining access, and the city potentially falling. Some of the defenders may well have been stranded outside of the city, as it seems unlikely that all of them could have got to safety before the gates were closed. The fact that so many of the defenders had been committed to the sortie, leaving the walls denuded of defenders, was critical at this point; they were simply unable to drive
the Macedonians back with a hail of missiles from above as should have been the case. The lack of rams and ladders meant it was difficult for the Macedonians to continue the assault directly, and the defenders would have gradually manned the walls and towers that were in good repair as they made the safety of the city, and then climbed the walls. Finally, after much effort, the Macedonians were driven back.

  Arrian tells us that the collapse of two towers and the intervening stretch of wall would have offered an easy entrance to the Macedonians if they had attacked in force. This statement needs further examination, however.84 Alexander had not yet been attacking the walls directly with his siege equipment, and therefore had not brought down the walls previously. Indeed, we know that he had spent several days constructing new siege engines and those from Miletus had only recently arrived by sea. We can also presume that the skirmish that resulted from the drunken boasting would not have been supported by siege engines, catapults, rams or siege towers: the response was too rapid to allow for a general assault to be organized. The only conclusion is, therefore, that the walls of the city were in a very poor condition when Alexander arrived outside of the walls. This is why we hear of the defenders frantically constructing defensive fortifications when the Macedonians were building their own siege engines. The defenders must have worked tirelessly as the Macedonians approached to build a curtain wall that was of sufficient strength to deter the Macedonians from making an initial assault in strength against that sector as soon as they arrived. The general state of the walls in that sector is a further reason that Alexander chose to concentrate his assault against the east and northeast of the city.

  When the Macedonians had been driven back, and as dawn began to break, it became apparent to Alexander that there had been some significant loss of life amongst his Macedonians. Diodorus tells us that he was forced to make a formal request for a cease fire in order to recover the dead so they could be given a proper burial. If true, this would not have been a unique event in Alexander’s career, but it would have been extremely rare, and there seems no obvious motive for invention. Diodorus presented the whole incident as an unqualified defeat. Arrian evidently attempted to put a positive spin on the matter by noting that the city almost fell, but glosses over the fact that the assault was the result of undisciplined drunkenness and of individuals not obeying orders, and was a failure at best, an expensive embarrassment at worst.85

  The drunken attack occurred the night before Alexander was ready to launch his main assault against the walls, but the incident would have caused some delay as he recovered his dead and performed the proper burial rituals. After that, Alexander made his final preparations, and the siege engines were brought to bear against the newly-constructed curtain wall. As the siege towers were being dragged, or pushed, into position, the defenders once again sallied forth from the city. The defenders’ attack was two-pronged: the first division was against the sector where Alexander was taking personal command near the curtain wall; the other attack was launched later from the Tripylon Gate to the north of the city, a sector from which the Macedonians did not expect an attack.86 This two-pronged attack was a sophisticated and well-thought-out stratagem by Memnon and Ephialtes, and had clearly been well planned in advance. It would have been impossible to have organized such a coordinated attack only upon seeing the siege towers being brought forward. This implies that Memnon had probably devised a number of defensive strategies that were ready to be used as the opportunity presented itself.

  Alexander’s troops quickly drove the attackers back towards the walls, but this was exactly Ephialtes’ plan. In a strategy reminiscent of Miltiades at Marathon, Ephialtes kept his own group of men back from the fighting, and once the first wave had retreated far enough, drawing the Macedonians inwards, he counter-attacked from the Tripylon Gate against the advancing Macedonians. The Macedonians found themselves under attack on three sides, as well as from missile weapons thrown from the battlements above. Alexander had allowed himself to be drawn into a very difficult position; he had evidently believed that the fall of the city was underway, as at Thebes the previous year, but Memnon and Ephialtes were excellent tacticians. Alexander had led the assault with the younger men of the pezhetairoi, Philip’s long-serving veterans being held in reserve; it was this decision that saved many Macedonian lives. When the veteran troops saw the evolving situation, they readied themselves and advanced upon the enemy, quickly turning the tide of the encounter back in the Macedonians’ favour.

  The objective of this sortie was the destruction of Alexander’s siege towers. The defenders knew that these could easily be used to allow large numbers of attackers to pepper the defenders with missile fire, denuding the walls before they were breached. The sortie was led by Ephialtes, and the men carried burning torches that they hurled at the wooden siege towers. One of the towers quickly caught fire and was destroyed, but Alexander rallied the men under his immediate command and drove the Halicarnassians back within the city in time to save the second tower. As well as the use of infantry to drive back the defenders, ‘catapults mounted on towers kept up a continuous pressure by hurling heavy stones’. This is the first attested use in history of stone-throwing catapults being used during a siege; although they are used against infantry here, there is no reason to assume that they would not also have been used against the walls, as at Tyre.87

  The sortie of Ephialtes was a partial success: one of the towers had been destroyed, but the threat that they presented had not been removed. The second attack from the Tripylon Gate was far less successful: they were met by Ptolemy (captain of the royal guard) and probably the hypaspists, along with a detachment of light infantry. The attackers were quickly beaten back with disastrous consequences: they all fled across a bridge over the dyke that surrounded the city, which collapsed under the collective weight. Many died as they fell into the dyke, and many more were killed by missiles thrown by the Macedonians as the Halicarnassians attempted to scramble to safety. The attackers, now in a desperate situation, were doomed when the city gates were closed too soon, for fear that the Macedonians might break into the city. The slaughter that occurred outside of the gates was terrible, and would have been devastating on the morale of the defenders as they could do little more than simply watch their friends being cut down. Memnon lost around 1,000 men (including Ephialtes himself) in these sorties; overall it was a risky gamble that failed in its objective of preventing the siege towers from reaching the walls of the city, and cost the defenders many men that they could ill afford to lose.

  Following Ephialtes’ death and the relative failure of the final sortie, Memnon and the Persian commander, Orontobates, came to the decision that the city could not be held for much longer against the Macedonians, especially now that their siege engines were operational and constantly guarded. Parts of the walls had collapsed, other sections were close to collapse and the defenders had lost many men in combat. Around midnight, they set fire to the magazines in the city, the houses closest to the walls and the wooden tower that had been constructed to help the defence of the city. Once the fires were set, the wind took over and the conflagration spread to the rest of the city, much of which was soon alight. The surviving forces withdrew to the island stronghold of Salmacis, probably the citadel of Arconnesus (Kara Ada) just off the coast of Halicarnassus and technically still part of the city.

  Alexander evidently did not want the city razed to the ground and quickly breached the walls giving orders to his men to kill anyone they saw setting fires, while townspeople were to be rescued from the flames.88 If true, this shows that the Macedonians were capable of resisting the urge to loot and pillage at the end of a siege. It further suggests that the destruction of Thebes was more the result of frustration and of long-standing scores being settled, than of any lack of discipline.

  Once day broke, Alexander could see the level of destruction in the city, and the fact that the island fortress was heavily defended by Memnon and his surviving mercenaries. Seeing tha
t any siege of the island would be both time consuming and costly in terms of the potential loss of Macedonian life, he decided to leave a detachment of troops to continue the siege. Alexander decided to continue the conquest of Persia by marching first east along the coast, and then inland towards Gordium and ultimately towards Cilicia and the campaign of Issus. The continued siege would have been costly, but this can not be the reason for abandoning it. After all, Ptolemy was left behind to conduct the siege and, therefore, the losses were going to occur whether they were commanded by Alexander or Ptolemy. Alexander’s main reasons for abandoning the siege were twofold. Firstly, he needed to continue with his strategy of defeating the Persian navy on land. The sooner he was able to achieve this, the sooner he would secure the Macedonian homeland, as well as the wider Greek world, from a Memnonled counter-attack. The Persian fleet would not have been able to use the island fortress for supply indefinitely as it would have very limited supplies itself. The fleet would have been required to keep the island supplied, not vice-versa. Alexander, therefore, could legitimately claim to have deprived the Persians of their major port in southwest Asia Minor before moving on. Alexander’s second main reason for leaving Halicarnassus before its final fall was simply impatience; he had been delayed for longer than he would have wished at Halicarnassus, and the prospect of a further delay of probably months at least would have been intolerable. Alexander was keen to engage in battle with Darius, and he could only achieve this by moving further east as soon as possible.

  There are two separate accounts of Halicarnassus, those of Diodorus and Arrian. Diodorus certainly presents this campaign as the least impressive of Alexander’s career, although Arrian is less negative. Even in Arrian, however, Halicarnassus is far from an overwhelming success; still we find the undisciplined soldiers of Perdiccas’ taxis and still we find Alexander being taken by surprise by Ephialtes’ sortie, as well as the lack of protection for his siege engines and towers. Innovation throughout the whole siege was typically as a reaction to the actions of Memnon and Ephialtes in both traditions.89 Whilst it is true that he was, to a point, successful, he only captured part of the city and did not deprive the Persian navy of its base; that was ultimately left to Ptolemy.