To split the Tyrian’s attention, the Greek forces launched a number of diversionary attacks on various points of the islands walls and the navy bombarded the city from all sides with projectiles. With Tyre’s forces fighting on all sides, two ships approached the breached wall. From a tall siege tower, Alexander personally led some of his elite soldiers onto the walls of Tyre and they forced their way into the city. The thoroughly demoralised defenders of Tyre were now in a panic and Alexanders forces were now able to punch through other areas of the city including through its harbours. The fighting inside the city was fierce but relatively short-lived. 

Some citizens of Tyre sought shelter in the Temple of Melkart (Melqart), where Alexander had wanted to sacrifice to Heracles (Hercules). The city became a slaughterhouse. 6,000 of the Tyrian defenders died in battle while reportedly, only 400 of Alexander’s men died in the final fight for Tyre. Even if those numbers are exaggerated the disparity was surely great. 

30,000 of the citizens of Tyre were subsequently sold into slavery while 2,000 soldiers who had survived the downfall were forced onto the beaches of Tyre and hung or nailed by the hands onto trees, posts and rudimentary frames until they were dead. The Roman empire would later famously employ this form of slow public execution called in Latin, “crucifixion“. 

Ancient historians relate that 15,000 Tyrians were secretly saved from the victor’s cruelty. Since Alexander had pressed into service the soldiers and sailors of subjugated Phoenicians cities, many of his forces were related to the people of Tyre by blood and culture. Some of these troops quietly provided their kinsmen protection and secreted them onto their ships where they were smuggled away from danger. 

In the end, Alexander did make sacrifices to Hercules at the Temple of Melkart. Interestingly, in spite of the great slaughter that he ordered, those who had sought shelter in the temple were spared. Here to, he probably sought to show his reverence for a temple that he associated with the worship of Heracles. 

Tyre In Later Centuries 

Tyre was razed to the ground. It was standard practice for a victorious army to reduce the walls of a conquered city to rubble, lest the city be refortified and again used against them. This was the case with Tyre. Stripped of its impressive defenses and denuded of its citizens, proud Tyre, no longer even an island was for a time, only fit for fishermen to dry their nets on the bare rock. 

The city would eventually be rebuilt, although never again would it enjoy its former political importance. However, under the Romans the city would become an important commercial center. The worship of Melkart did not disappear quickly.  

His image , continued to be presented on Tyrian coinage. It is a strange fact that during the lifetime of Jesus, the Tyrian Shekel (also called a Tetradrachma), was the only acceptable coin that could be used to pay the temple tax in Jerusalem. The money changers that Jesus drove out of the temple were changing Roman currency into Tyrian shekels. The 30 pieces of silver that the arch-traitor Judas was bought with (Matthew 26: 14,15) were almost certainly Tyrian shekels and bore the face of the Baal of Tyre. 

Many of the Phoenician’s who escaped the fall of Tyre eventually made their way to Carthage in North Africa. With Tyre destroyed, Carthage became the most important Phoenician city and would for a time under her famous general Hannibal, even rival Rome for dominance of the Mediterranean. 

During the ministry of Jesus, crowds of people from Tyre and Sidon would travel to hear Jesus speak. On one occasion, Jesus personally visited the region around Tyre, on which occasion he cured the demon-possessed child of a Phoenician woman who was suffering greatly. Jesus visit to the region evidently bore fruit, because just over 20 years later toward the conclusion of the Apostle Paul’s third missionary trip, he sought out and stayed with the Christian community in Tyre for seven days. 

In the 7th century AD, Tyre and what is now Lebanon and Syria fell to Muslim Arab invaders. In 1124, European Crusaders won Tyre for Christendom in the First Crusade.

In 1291, Muslim forces drove out the Crusaders and for the next many centuries, what remained of Tyre lay in ruins, inhabited by almost no one. In 1697, an English academic and clergyman named Henry Maundrell passed through Tyre on his way to Jerusalem. He reported in Tyre only “a few poor wretches, harboring themselves in vaults and subsisting chiefly on fishing.” This immediately brings to mind Ezekiel’s statement that Tyre, 

“…will become a drying yard for dragnets in the midst of the sea.” (Ezekiel 26:5) 

By the end of the 19th century, a population was again beginning to form in what had once been Tyre. 

These were no longer Phoenician people, whose culture, religion and language has been lost to history. Rather the new city is peopled by descendants of the Arabs who first settled in the land after the death of Muhammad. Sadly, war continues to visit the region. Notably, the Lebanese Civil War which raged from the mid-1970’s until 1990 brought much suffering to the region. During the third phase of the war the city was heavily shelled by Israeli artillery in 1982. 

Most recently, armed forces in the city belonging to the Shia Muslim “Hezbollah” militia were bombed by Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War. 

Aerial photo of Tyre circa 1934. Centuries of sedimentation has turned Alexander’s causeway into a peninsula 500 meters wide. Today, visitors who look for ruins from Phoenician Tyre will be disappointed for nothing at all remains from that time period. Everything from that era was removed and thrown into the sea to build Alexander’s causeway, leaving only “shining, bare rock” (Ezekiel 26:4). 

Impressive ruins from Roman period do exist and UNESCO has declared the area a World Heritage Site. Alexander’s causeway permanently altered the sea currents and many long centuries of sedimentation has turned the causeway into a sandy peninsula approximately 500 meters wide.  

In recent decades the area has been heavily built over. 

The area of the causeway now contains hundreds of apartment blocks and Lebanese Tyre has a population roughly estimated in 1993 to be 117,000 (although the real number is probably much higher). Tyre’s southern harbour gradually filled with silt and has long since disappeared but the northern, “Sidonian” harbour is still used and is filled with fishing boats and pleasure craft. 

Recent years have seen a marked increase in tourism and it is hoped that the newborn city’s white sandy beaches and rich historical heritage will make modern Tyre a tourist hotspot…

This text is an extract from the book “WAS SATAN REALLY AN ARCHANGEL?” written by JOHN ANOSIKE. 
We invite you to read the following article “SOME LIES ABOUT SATAN“.