Introduction
Ancient narratives were enriched with textual strategies in order to enhance the interpretation of the accounts as well as make the history carrying stories more believable. The ancient authors used historical approaches, literary, and linguistic styles to improve the persuasiveness of their accounts of historical events, especially the disastrous battles that marked major historical times. War is a major part of human history and therefore has been and is still a prominent theme in art. Each war may have its unique features such as the weapons used, the type of conflict involved, as well as cultures and landscapes encountered. However, the most dramatic aspect of all wars is the psychological aspect. Therefore, universally, war is associated with themes such as heroism, sacrifice, suffering, love, human frailty, reasons for wanting to live or die, beliefs in fate, a larger course, loyalty, and betrayal, among others. The war resulting from The Siege of Tyre was no different since it had all the above-mentioned themes. Some of the ancient narratives covering the events of the war were written by Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius Rufus.
The Siege of Tyre was a war orchestrated by ancient Greek King; Alexander the Great. The King was against the Persians who ruled the city. The war is famous due to the advanced tactics employed by Alexander. Indeed, as a result of these tactics, Alexander the Great was able to accomplish what the Macedonians before him were unable to do, specifically due to the geographical location of the city. For various reasons, the war marks an important part of human history and, therefore, the narratives explaining its events are vital. Ancient narratives, however, are often faced by the question of how truthful or believable they are. The authors, therefore, have the challenge to make the stories believable. Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius Rufus, all wrote the Siege of Tyre story using different persuasive strategies.
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Arrian
Arrian gives an account of the Siege of Tyre war in his Alexandrou Anabasis. Noteworthy, his account of Alexander the Great’s campaign in Asia is considered the most reliable. Indeed, the story’s literary qualities are exemplary. Arrian of Nicomedia was a Greek historian who also served as a military commander in the Roman Period. In this regard, his career in the military in itself helps his creditability for telling the war story. In addition, the narrative techniques and verbal choices that he employs make his narration of the historical events more believable than most of the other accounts. Moreover, his account is full of details of what happened from the time of the planning of the siege, its execution, and its ending. Arrian also embraces a critical description of the setting of the narrative, describing in detail the city of Tyre and the surrounding. For instance, the excerpt “the city… fortified all round with high walls (Arian),” offers an in-depth explanation of how the city was secured. He goes further and describes the place where Alexander the king decided to build a mole from the mainland of the island on which the city of Tyre was located. “The place he picked had shallows and mudflats near the mainland… (Arian)” describes the author. Arrian then takes the reader step by step through the process of the mole construction; how stakes were fixed in the mud, stones filled in until the process was disrupted by a missile fired by Tyrian defenders from the high walls surrounding the city of Tyre. The vivid description of the setting, as well as the taking place of events, is good enough to convince the reader that the author was part of the war. Indeed, such a detailed description makes Arrian’s account of the siege believable to his audience.
Similarly, since Arrian was a military man, he was able to describe the attack strategies better than the rest of the authors who wrote about the siege. The author describes the war strategies and tactics, the weapons used, and the setting of the war, including all structures present. Additionally, he offers an apt description of every step of the attack. “The Tyrians prepared a cavalry transport ship… two masts in the bow…built bulwarks all-round the maximum holding capacity of the ship,” explains Arrian. He also mentions materials used in the attack such as timber, combustible wood, pitch, and Sulphur, among other inflammable materials. Importantly, he gives an account of the attacks from both sides. The well-described events give the audience confidence in the author. Moreover, the details assure the audience that the writer of the narrative was a well-informed person who got information from reliable and comprehensive sources. The confidence built among the audience makes them persuaded about the truthfulness of the narrative.
Unlike the rest of the authors, Arrian concentrates more on Alexander’s army as a whole rather than the king himself. Ideally, Arrian avoids exaggerating the influence Alexander had on the war thus making his account seem more of a reality than imagination. Certainly, emphasizing the strength of the hero of a story can make it seem fictitious. In a real war zone, the effort of every soldier counts and not that of the leader alone. Throughout his narrative, Arian recognizes the efforts of the rest of the soldiers. For example, by writing “the Macedonians set the two towers on the mole” Arrian makes the event seem more real than saying Alexander the king did it. In essence, from the way Arrian depicts the event, one is able to conclude that it is not the king’s courage or strength that resulted in the successful siege of the city of Tyre. Instead, it took a powerful and disciplined army, advanced technology, and well-executed strategies to win the war. Such logical explanations make the narrative more believable than others.
Plutarch
Plutarch is another ancient author who wrote about the events of the Siege of Tyre. A closer examination of his account of the siege brings out his writing styles. Indeed, the author focuses more on the religious and spiritual matters of Alexander and adds nice dramatic details to make the narrative more interesting. Importantly, Plutarch does not dwell on the events of the war and only mentions the siege lightly. Plutarch has the persona, which he uses to explain the aspects of Alexander’s life. For instance, he employs dreams and prophesies to depict an extraordinary king chosen by a higher power as exemplified in the following excerpt, “And the omen was fulfilled… he took the city”. Plutarch also portrays the king, not as a self-appointed leader but as a person whose leadership came from a higher power. Ideally, Plutarch persuades his audience by writing about the dreams, which signified a calling for Alexander to lead his army in the Siege of Tyre as illustrated in the following excerpt “…he saw Heracles stretching out his hand to him from the wall and calling him…” (Plutarch). Overall, this kind of symbolism can be persuasive, especially to people who believe in supernatural powers. Plutarch also narrated the war story from a different angle. He uses people’s beliefs to manipulate their understanding of the war involved in the Siege of Tyre. Individuals who hold beliefs of the existence of supernatural powers, especially from biblical teachings, believe that leadership comes from God. In addition, they believe that victory in war is granted by God who makes prophets and seers foresee it. In this regard, Plutarch is seen as an advocate of spirituality. He was, therefore, writing his narrative for believers and spiritual people, since, to them, the narrative would be believable.
Diodorus Silicus
Silicus is often viewed as a mere copyist of historical traditions that came before his time. The author is said to have followed written accounts throughout his writing. The ancient writer, however, refashioned the old ideas he found in his sources as well as introduced new ones of his own. The coping of narratives preserved in his sources naturally led to the belief that his stories were devoid of original philosophy as well as personal literary expression. His writing techniques have their uniqueness in methods of organization and style, political sentiments, as well as the broad historical and philosophical themes he covers. Silicus begins his account of the siege by describing the alarm raised in Tyre by the advancing Alexander’s army. Unlike the other authors who began with the events on the Macedonian side, Diodorus intentionally began with the side of the victim as an organizational style that helped him develop an interesting flow of events. From there, the author explains step by step how the events went down. Unlike other authors who wrote about their own stories about events that happened ages before them, Diodorus made clear what was in the original sources of such stories. In essence, this made his work quite believable as he did not manipulate what was written by people who witnessed the events. Instead, he just arranged the events in a chronological manner and expressed them in a more organized and clear way that could be understood better by his audience. Ultimately, Diodorus narrative of the siege of Tyre is straightforward and does not manipulate the reader to understand it in a certain way. The audience reads the events systematically as they happened and then derives their own interpretation.
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius was a rhetorician who lived in the Roman empire of the first century. He wrote a history of Alexander the Great in ten books. One of his main sources was Cleitarchus. The source influenced his Alexander narratives into being a mere marvelous adventure. Like many of his other stories, Quintus's narrative of the Siege of Tyre is not critically historian. Indeed, the author focused much on stressing the personality of Alexander and hence made his account of the siege more of an entertainment story rather than a history-facts-presenting story. Quintus’ account elaborates effective scenes and omits a lot that is important for history. He also does not care much about chronology. Indeed, this explains why his narrative is one of the hardest to believe as he invented speeches and letters for his narratives. Importantly, the main features of his narratives included exciting experiences, the development of the hero’s character, as well as the temperament of moralizing. “The men were given two days after which they were ordered to bring up the fleet and siege engines…(Hufus)” writes Curtius. The excerpt recounts the events in such a simple way that eliminates the details of how difficult the whole process was. Nonetheless, when it comes to character development, he is keen to use emphasis. For instance, the author’s choice of words in the sentence “…the king himself climbed the highest siege… full of catapults and other siege machines (Hufus)” is meant to emphasize the courage of Alexander the Great. The author also includes details of the fascinating events in order to create an image in the reader’s mind. He describes the conspicuous royal insignia as well as the flashing humor with which the king climbed the tower and how such objects easily made him the target of the enemy’s missiles. Quintus also goes ahead and describes the heroic actions of Alexander who he says sharply shot at the enemies with his spear ending up killing most of them. Curtius’ story is also brief compared to the accounts of the other authors such as Arrian and Silicus. Overall, he briefly describes the attack and the entrance into the city as well as the ending of the siege.
Conclusion
Ancient narratives play an important role in the understanding of human history. Ancient Greek stories, in particular, are crucial in helping humanity understand how things came to be. The narratives are, however, faced by obvious challenges. First, they come in many versions and it is thus difficult to differentiate between what is true and what is fictitious. In addition, most of the stories have been interpreted from one language to another. During the translation process, some words are altered and their meaning changes. Consequently, the original information ends up being lost and vital information turns out to be untrue. The tales of the siege of Tyre are not exceptional; they are diverse since they were written by multiple authors and during different ages. However, the most important aspect is that they contain a number of common themes, which bring out some truth about what transpired. Even though it is almost impossible to deduce the whole truth, we get a clue about what happened during the early ages. Ultimately, understanding human history is crucial for the development and discovering of details about the history of humankind.
References
Arrian. 2.15.6-25
Diod.Sic 17.40-46
Plut. Alex : 24-25
Quintus Curtis Rufus 4.2.1-5.7
