Siege of Halicarnassus
| date | Summer to autumn 334 BC Chr. |
|---|---|
| place | Halicarnassus / Asia Minor |
| output | Siege successful |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Alexander the Great |
|
| Troop strength | |
| more than 1,000 Persians 2,000 Greek mercenaries |
|
| losses | |
|
at least 56 killed |
at least 1,170 dead |
Granicus - Miletus - Halicarnassus - Issus - Tire - Gaugamela - Persian Gates - Jaxartes - Sogdian Rock - Chorienes Rock - Gabai - Hydaspes
The siege of Halicarnassus was a military conflict that lasted several months, after the end of which Alexander the Great was able to conquer the strategically important port city of Halicarnassus , today's Bodrum in Turkey . It lasted from summer to autumn of the year 334 BC. BC, with the city's last defensive structures not until autumn 333 BC. BC could be taken. The siege is one of the most important military stations of the Alexanderzug .
prehistory
In the spring of 334 BC Chr. Began Alexander the Great 's famous conquest in Asia and won the Battle of the Granicus first major victory over the Persians, who gave him control of the north-western Asia Minor gave. After he had subsequently taken the Greek cities along the Aegean coast of Asia Minor , he moved in the summer of 334 BC. BC from Miletus via Iasos and Bargylia into the province of Caria , whose capital Halicarnassus was his next destination. On the way, the exiled Princess Ada , who claimed the rightful rule in Halicarnassus against the husband of her niece, Orontopates , went to meet him. She adopted Alexander, who was able to establish his right to rule over Caria as her legal successor.
In Halicarnassus, however, Alexander awaited his greatest military test to date. In the heavily fortified city, after the Battle of Granikos, the base of operations of the Persian naval and land forces, which were under the command of the capable mercenary general Memnon of Rhodes , was established. The numerically superior Persian fleet anchored in their port, while Alexander had to disband his own fleet shortly before due to the high costs, which is why he could not press Halicarnassus from the seaside. Apart from the wall, the city was also protected by three fortifications. In addition to their acropolis , these were the fortresses of Salmakis and Zephyrion, which were each built at the ends of the tunnels of the horseshoe-shaped harbor and dominated its entrance. The city itself was defended not only by a Persian troop but also by a battle-tested Greek mercenary garrison, which was commanded by the Attic generals Ephialtes and Thrasybulos . They had after a year earlier case of Thebes from Athens to flee to escape extradition to Alexander.
Alexander camped at the northeast end of the city wall across from the Mylasa Gate. Because his siege engines, which could only be transported slowly, followed the army at intervals of several days, he could not launch any attacks on the city for the first few days, but had to fend off occasional defenders. After a few days of waiting, he decided to take the port city of Myndos , about 20 kilometers west of Halicarnassus . Myndos was of little strategic value, but had announced his willingness to give up if Alexander moved in under cover of night. In addition, he led three departments of the Pezhetaires ( Perdickas , Amyntas , Meleagros ), the Hypaspisten , the Hetairenreiterei , the archers and the Agrianas with him. But when they arrived before Myndos, the city gates were locked and its walls were occupied with warriors from Halicarnassus who had been moved by sea. In the absence of siege machines, Alexander began to undermine the city wall, whereby one of its defensive towers could be brought down. But the resistance of the defenders proved too stubborn for Alexander to have accepted the unnecessary loss of many men for Myndos, whom he needed more urgently for Halicarnassus. So he broke off the siege of Myndos to lead his troops back to the field camp, where the siege engines had meanwhile arrived.
The siege
After the trench in front of the northeast section of the wall had been filled in and leveled, Alexander was finally able to bring his machines up to the wall of Halicarnassus. First he used the siege towers manned by archers, which drove the defenders from the walls with their hail of arrows. This made it possible to bring the battering rams, with which a long section of the wall was torn down after a few days. Before the Macedonians could penetrate into the city, Memnon and his troops dared a night raid with the aim of pillaging the machines. After a bitter struggle, the defenders were finally repulsed, killing 170 of them. Among them was a Macedonian defector, Neoptolemus , whose family had been involved in the murder of Philip II . On the Macedonian side 16 warriors were killed and 300 injured, but they also lost two towers and two shelters.
The next few days passed uneventfully with the occasional skirmish among the opponents. The defenders used the time to close the breach in their wall with a hastily raised semicircular wall and tower. On this one night two Pezhetaires from the battalion of Perdiccas tried to fight a contest in a drunken state by trying to prove their fighting strength on the new wall. They dragged the entire division with them into an uncoordinated attack, which gave Memnon the opportunity to destroy an entire army division of the Macedonians. Only by quickly intervening with the rest of the warriors and with heavy losses could Alexander save the department, which had been troubled by arrogance. Nevertheless, he had to admit defeat that night by asking Memnon to hand over the fallen for burial. The defenders were then able to repel further attacks on the wall and burn down one of the siege towers, while the rest were saved by the deployment of officers Philotas and Hellanikos .
Despite these defensive successes, Memnon could not help but realize that it was only a matter of time before Alexander would finally break through the wall. He and his officers therefore came to the decision to risk a decisive battle. To do this, he formed his troops into three waves of attack, the first of which was to fall head-on from the contested section of the wall on the Macedonians and attack their machines. The second wave, led by Ephialtes, was supposed to drop out through the middle of the three city gates, which the Macedonians had ignored until then, and attack the flank of their camp. The third battle formation under Memnon was initially to be held back as a reserve and only then to intervene in the battle as soon as Ephialtes had succeeded in luring the Macedonians from the cover of their camp. As planned, the battle was opened by the defenders and in fact they put the Macedonian flank in dangerous distress. On their side, however, it was the experience and absolute fighting discipline of the veteran warriors who had fought under Philip II that saved the situation. Led by the bodyguard Ptolemaios , two light infantry detachments formed a close-standing defensive formation in a classic phalanx position , in which the warriors with their overlapping shields formed an almost impenetrable barrier. Soon the Macedonians succeeded in pushing back the defenders, with Ephialtes finally falling after several victorious duels. His warriors, discouraged, began to retreat towards the city again, the defenders having made the mistake of having closed the city gates too early so that the warriors could not get behind the protective walls again. Many of them fell to their deaths in front of the central gate when the wooden bridge over the deep moat collapsed under their weight. Over 1,000 of the defenders lost their lives in this battle, while the Macedonian side only suffered 40 fallen.
The battle had ultimately brought about the decision in the battle for Halicarnassus in favor of Alexander. In view of the enormous losses, Memnon had come to the conclusion that the city could no longer be held. With his officers, he decided to give up the city including the Acropolis and the relocation of the fleet to Kos . For this purpose, the fortifications should be set on fire in order not to leave them to the conqueror. Due to the wind, the kindled fire spread to the houses of the residents, who burned down in large numbers; the famous tomb of the Maussolos was not damaged. Orontopates himself intended to hold the two port fortresses Salmakis and Zephyrion, in which he entrenched himself with the most experienced of the warriors left to him.
Last fights
In the autumn of 334 BC After several months of siege, Alexander was finally able to move into Halicarnassus. Those arsonists whom he could get hold of were executed, but the residents were spared. He himself did not intend to stay longer than necessary in this city and installed a crew of 3,000 infantrymen and 200 cavalrymen under the command of the officer Ptolemaios (presumably identical to Ptolemaios, son of Philippos ), who as strategos was to take over the military security of Caria. Although the two port fortresses were still in Persian hands and the conquest was still incomplete, he continued his march to the east of Asia Minor. Because his most important concern, the neutralization of the port of Halicarnassus as a base for the Persian fleet, was finally achieved. It no longer posed a serious threat after Memnon had died a little later and the Macedonian-Greek fleet had resumed its operations in the Aegean Sea.
Only a year later, in the autumn of 333 BC. BC, the last battle for Halicarnassus was fought when Orontopates was defeated by the strategos Ptolemaios and the satrap Asandros in a "great battle". 700 of Orontopates' infantrymen and 50 of his cavalrymen were killed and 1,000 more of his fighters were taken prisoner. Thereupon he also gave up the port fortresses in order to go to the court of the Persian great king Darius III. to flee. Alexander learned of this final victory in Soloi in Cilicia , a few days before the battle of Issus .
swell
The main sources for the siege of Halicarnassus as well as the biography of Alexander as a whole are the works of Arrian ( Anabasis 1, 20–23, Promakedonian after Ptolemaios ) and Diodor ( Bibliothéke historiké 17, 24–27, propersisch). Plutarch mentions them in his vita of Alexander not, Curtius Rufus probably described it in the second book of his Alexander biography, which is lost.
literature
- Freya Stark: Alexander's March from Miletus to Phrygia , In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Vol. 78 (1958), pp. 102-120.
- PA Brunt: Persian Accounts of Alexander's Campaigns , In: The Classical Quaterly , Vol. 12 (1962), pp. 141-155.
- Stephen Ruzicka: Curtius 4.1. 34-37 and the "Magnitudo Belli" , In: The Classical Journal , Vol. 79 (1983), pp. 30-34.
- Robin Lane Fox : Alexander the Great, Conqueror of the World , pp. 166–171. Hamburg 2010.
annotation
- ↑ The “great battle” mentioned by Curtius Rufus (3, 7, 4) probably took place in Lydia and was part of a larger Persian offensive led by Pharnabazos at sea and on land. See also Ruzicka.