Alexander's Causeway, Tyre

About

Alexander the Great's engineers built this half-mile mole of stone, timber, and rubble from the abandoned mainland town of Ushu to break the naval defenses of island Tyre during his 332 BCE siege. Centuries of silt piling against the mole steadily widened it into a true isthmus, permanently fusing the once-island city to the coast. By 117 CE Roman Tyre stood on a broad peninsula built entirely on Alexander's foundation, its main landward road running straight over ground his army had won. The causeway remains visible today as the very shape of modern Tyre's isthmus.

What happened here

It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.

In ancient writing

• Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 2.18-2.21

  Describes the Macedonian army building the mole from stone, timber, and rubble taken from the abandoned mainland city.

Sources

• https://www.worldhistory.org/article/107/alexanders-siege-of-tyre-332-bce/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_(332_BC)

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