CHAPTER XXVII.

CAPTURE OF GAZA.

When Alexander heard this, he kept himself for a time near the military

engines, out of the reach of missiles. But when a vigorous sortie was

made from the city, and the Arabs were carrying torches to set fire

to the military engines, and from their commanding position above

hurling missiles at the Macedonians, who were defending themselves

from lower ground, were driving them down from the mound which they

had made, then Alexander either wilfully disobeyed the soothsayer, or

forgot the prophecy from excitement in the heat of action. Taking the

shield-bearing guards, he hastened to the rescue where the Macedonians

were especially hard pressed, and prevented them from being driven

down from the mound in disgraceful flight. But he was himself wounded

by a bolt from a catapult, right through the shield and breastplate

into the shoulder. When he perceived that Aristander had spoken the

truth about the wound, he rejoiced, because he thought he should also

capture the city by the aid of the soothsayer. And yet indeed he was

not easily cured of the wound. In the meantime the military engines

with which he had captured Tyre arrived, having been sent for by sea;

and he ordered the mound to be constructed quite round the city on all

sides, two stades[338] in breadth and 250 feet in height. When his

engines had been prepared, and brought up along the mound, they shook

down a large extent of wall; and mines being dug in various places,

and the earth being drawn out by stealth, the wall fell down in many

parts, subsiding into the emptied space.[339] The Macedonians then

commanded a large extent of ground with their missiles, driving back

the men who were defending the city, from the towers. Nevertheless, the

men of the city sustained three assaults, though many of their number

were killed or wounded; but at the fourth attack, Alexander led up the

phalanx of the Macedonians from all sides, threw down the part of the

wall which was undermined, and shook down another large portion of it

by battering it with his engines, so that he rendered the assault an

easy matter through the breaches with his scaling ladders. Accordingly

the ladders were brought up to the wall; and then there arose a great

emulation among those of the Macedonians who laid any claim to valour,

to see who should be the first to scale the wall. The first to do so

was Neoptolemus, one of the Companions, of the family of the Aeacidae;

and after him mounted one rank after another with their officers. When

once some of the Macedonians got within the wall, they split open in

succession the gates which each party happened to light upon, and thus

admitted the whole army into the city. But though their city was now

in the hands of the enemy, the Gazaeans nevertheless stood together

and fought; so that they were all slain fighting there, as each man had

been stationed. Alexander sold their wives and children into slavery;

and having peopled the city again from the neighbouring settlers, he

made use of it as a fortified post for the war.[340]