By this last unsuccessful effort, the defensive force of
Halikarnassus was broken. Memnon and Orontobates, satisfied that
no longer defence of the town was practicable, took advantage
of the night to set fire to their wooden projectile engines and
towers, as well as to their magazines of arms, with the houses near
the exterior wall, while they carried away the troops, stores,
and inhabitants, partly to the citadel called Salmakis—partly to
the neighboring islet called Arkonnesus—partly to the island of
Kos.[228] Though thus evacuating the town, however, they still kept
good garrisons well-provisioned in the two citadels belonging to it.
The conflagration, stimulated by a strong wind, spread widely. It
was only extinguished by the orders of Alexander, when he entered
the town, and put to death all those whom he found with firebrands.
He directed that the Halikarnassians found in the houses should be
spared, but that the city itself should be demolished. He assigned
the whole of Karia to Ada, as a principality, doubtless under
condition of tribute. As the citadels still occupied by the enemy
were strong enough to require a long siege, he did not think it
necessary to remain in person for the purpose of reducing them; but
surrounding them with a wall of blockade, he left Ptolemy and 3000
men to guard it.[229]
[228] Arrian, i. 23, 3, 4; Diodor. xvii. 27.
[229] Arrian, i. 23, 11; Diodor. xvii. 7; Strabo, xiv. p. 657.
Having concluded the siege of Halikarnassus, Alexander sent back his
artillery to Tralles, ordering Parmenio, with a large portion of the
cavalry, the allied infantry, and the baggage waggons, to Sardis.
The ensuing winter months he employed in the conquest of Lykia,
Pamphylia, and Pisidia. All this southern coast of Asia Minor is
mountainous; the range of Mount Taurus descending nearly to the sea,
so as to leave little or no intervening breadth of plain. In spite
of great strength of situation, such was the terror of Alexander’s
arms, that all the Lykian towns—Hyparna, Telmissus, Pinara, Xanthus,
Patara, and thirty others—submitted to him without a blow.[230] One
alone among them, called Marmareis, resisted to desperation.[231]
On reaching the territory called Milyas, the Phrygian frontier of
Lykia, Alexander received the surrender of the Greek maritime city,
Phasêlis. He assisted the Phaselites in destroying a mountain fort
erected and garrisoned against them by the neighboring Pisidian
mountaineers, and paid a public compliment to the sepulchre of their
deceased townsman, the rhetorician Theodektes.[232]
[230] Arrian, i. 24, 6-9.
[231] Diodor. xvii. 28.
[232] Arrian, i. 24, 11; Plutarch, Alexand. 17.
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