Siege of Gaza

The Siege of Gaza in the fall of 332 BC was part of the campaign of Alexander the Great against the Achaemenid Empire.

In the two- month siege of the city of Gaza, who became wealthy through the Levantine trade, put the Macedonian commander same as a siege machines at the siege of Tyre. After three unsuccessful attempts to take the city, he finally succeeded Alexander to overcome the walls with an assault. Since Batis, the commander of the Persian garrison, and the inhabitants of the city, Alexander refused to surrender voluntarily, had this the entire male population of the city to death and sell the women and children into slavery.

In the illustration, Quintus Curtius Rufus the Roman historian Alexander dragged the Persian commander Batis outside the city gates, attached to a chariot, to death. This comparison with the killing of Hector should punish the intransigence of the Persian commander.

Swell

• Arrian, Anabasis 2, 25, 4-27, 7
• Curtius Rufus 4, 6, 7-31
• Diodorus 17, 48, 7
• Plutarch, Alexander 25, 4f.
• Hegesias, FGrH 142 F 5
• Flavius ​​Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 11, 320 and 11, 325