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So confident was Darius that he would triumph at Issus, he had brought his mother, wife, and daughters to the battle.
So hastily did he flee, they were left behind for Alexander to capture.
Like the women of Troy, powerless before their captors, Darius's family wept and lamented, imagining that their lot would now be misery and servitude;
but Alexander treated them with perfect respect, and allowed them every comfort to which they were accustomed.
Alexander proceeded along the coast, until he came to Tyre, that great city of the Phoenicians, set upon an offshore island as though the whole marvellous edifice floated on the sea.
Alexander demanded entry to Tyre, wishing to sacrifice at the Temple of Melqart.
The Tyrians refused — and when Alexander sent messengers a second time, they were hurled into the sea from the city walls.
An outrageous thing to do — but the Tyrians, their grand fortifications protected by the waves that lapped against them, held the entirely reasonable expectation that Alexander would give up and move on.
Alexander rarely did what you and I might consider reasonable.
And so work began on a vast causeway, a bridge of earth and rubble between Tyre and the mainland; the world reshaped at Alexander's command.