But Alexander was not to be defeated by fire, or storm, or the hostile Tyrians, and again ordered his men to repair the pier. Meanwhile, Alexander himself collected and equipped a fleet, and sailed into the Tyrian seas. The fleet of galleys now protected the men at work on the pier, and Alexander began to prepare for the final assault. He proposed to force his entrance on the southern side of the city, where there was a large breach in the wall. The plan was successful. He prepared a number of ships, with platforms raised upon them in such a manner that on getting near the walls they could be let down, and form a sort of bridge, over which the men could pass to the broken fragments of the wall, and thence ascend through the breach above. The ships advanced to the proposed place of landing. The bridges were lowered, and before the Tyrians realized their danger the city was filled with thirty thousand infuriated soldiers, who showed them no mercy. Thus the city was stormed. Alexander here displayed a brutal ferocity which tarnished the brightness of his victory. The inhabitants were put to the sword, some were executed, some thrown into the sea; and it is said that two thousand were crucified along the seashore. Prosperity and power were beginning to exert a baneful influence upon the character of Alexander. He became haughty, imperious, and cruel. About this time Darius sent him a second communication, proposing terms of peace. Darius offered him a large sum of money for the ransom of his wife, mother, and child, and agreed to give him all the country he had conquered. He also offered him his daughter Statira in marriage. He recommended that he should be content with his conquests, and added that he could not hope to succeed in crossing the mighty rivers of the East, which were in the way of his march toward the Persian dominions. Alexander replied “that if he wished to marry the daughter of Darius, he could do it without his consent; as to ransom, he was not in want of money; and as to the offer of Darius to give him all the territory west of the Euphrates, it was absurd for a man to speak of giving what was no longer his own; that he had crossed too many seas in his military expeditions, since he left Macedon, to feel any concern about the _rivers_ that he might find in his way; and that he should continue to pursue Darius wherever he might retreat in search of safety and protection, and he had no fear but that he should find and conquer him at last.” The siege and storming of Tyre has been considered one of the greatest of Alexander’s exploits. After the subjugation of Tyre, Alexander commenced his march for Egypt. His route led him through Judea. This was about three hundred years before the birth of Christ. A Jewish writer, named Josephus, who lived and wrote a few years after Christ, relates the circumstances of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem.