Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/357

 FORTIFIKD WALLS. 33^ served to uphold a quay built out into the water. The southern ramparts must have stood on the quay in question ; it is formed of huge blocks of stone filled in with a concrete or beton full of broken bricks and potsherds. 1 We must then form our idea of this enceinte from the evidence of ancient writers. According to Arrian it was i 50 feet high on the land side ; its thickness was in proportion to its height, and the huge blocks were held together by mortar. 2 This last detail seems doubtful ; the few Phoenician walls of which fragments remain are built of dry stones ; but the submarine wall described by M. Renan has all the characteristics attributed by the historian to the walls of Tyre ; it is possible that when the Tyrians found what good results they could obtain by such a process, they made use of it in their enceinte, which must often have been repaired and under-pinned. The wall was flanked with towers, and the king's palace was backed against it. The roofs of the latter communicated directly with the covered wav that ran the whole length of the curtain ; j o this we gather from Arrian's account of the assault which put an end to Tyrian independence.'' We have already met with the same arrangement in Assyria, at Khorsabad. 4 The ramparts of Sidon and Arvad, of which some imposing fragments still remain, have left no traces in history ; they had not the luck to hold the victor of Issus and Arbela in check for a vhole winter. It is, again, in accounts of the siege of Tyre that we read of Phoenician skill in the contrivance and management of military engines. The engineers of Alexander, who had won their reputation in the campaigns of Phillip, met their match in those of Tyre. 5 On both sides the greatest fertility of invention and energy in execution had already been displayed when Alex- ander committed himself to the stupendous task of building his famous mole. 6 In this respect the siege of Tyre was a preface 1 Mission, pp. 535, 560, 561. See also the plan given at page 531. 2 ARRIAN, Anabasis, II. xxi. 3. 'Hr 8e avVots TO. rei^r) Kara TO ^w/x.a, TO re VI//GS a's /cat e/carov /^.aAicrra TroSas KGU e's TrAaro? ^vfJLfJLfTpOV, Allots //eyuAots eV yvil/ia 3 ARRIAN, Anabasis, II. xxiii. 6. 4 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, vol. ii. p. n, and plate i. 5 Upon the Macedonian engineers of the school of Polyidus, see J. G. DROYSEN, Geschichte des Hellenismus (two vols. Hamburgh, 1836-1843), vol. i. p. 291, note i. DIODORUS, xvii. xli. 3 : xliii. i.