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Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Tyre in Jeromes

Commentary on Ezekiel

Benjamin Garstad
Department of Humanities, MacEwan University, Canada
garstadb@macewan.ca

Abstract

In order to elucidate the prophecies of Ezekiel, especially those against Egypt in Book
29, Jerome reconstructed the siege of Tyre by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. He
seems to have done this not so much on the basis of the predictions recorded in the
Bible (to say nothing of accurate records), as by comparison with accounts of Alexander
the Greats siege of the same city more than two hundred years later. Jerome seems
particularly dependent on the account of Alexanders siege of Tyre given by Quintus
Curtius Rufus. The following investigation broadens our understanding of the authors
known and used by Jerome, the uses to which he put his historical reading, and the
methods of his Biblical exegesis, especially historical reconstruction.

Keywords

Jerome Ezekiel Tyre Nebuchadnezzar Alexander Quintus Curtius Rufus

Biblical Commentaries

The siege of Tyre appears to have been one of the most protracted and, for some
ancient historians, most prominent events in the reign of the neo-Babylonian
king, Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605-562 BC). We know frustratingly little about this
siege, except that nearly seven hundred years later it was remembered to have
lasted thirteen years. A reliable description of Nebuchadnezzars siege of Tyre
would be of inestimable significance. We have a detailed relation of this event
by an ancient author, in Jeromes Commentary on Ezekiel. Unfortunately, the
historical value of this description is practically nil, because it is for all intents
and purposes the brainchild of Jerome. Its interest, rather, lies in r evealing the

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176 garstad

methods by which and the purposes to which Jerome reconstructed the past in
the course of his Biblical hermeneutics.
Jerome testifies that he had contemplated the prospect of a commentary on
Ezekiel and been eager to undertake the task for some time before he had the
opportunity to set pen to paper in 411. The work was carried on in spurts, as
it was interrupted by Jeromes anxiety occasioned by the barbarian invasions
and the fall of Rome, as well as by the very real work of receiving refugees at his
monastery in Bethlehem, but was finally completed in 414.1 It was, therefore,
one of the last of Jeromes writings finished before his death in 419 or 420, and
he brought to it a lifetime of reading and learned reflection.
Jerome offers his detailed description of Nebuchadnezzars siege of Tyre
not in a comment on one of the oracles against the city itself, but in an
explanation of the opening of a prophecy against Egypt, in which the Lord
declares He will give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar and his army because, although
he caused them to serve a great service against Tyre, they still lacked their
wages.2 He says:

Nabuchodonosor cum oppugnaret Tyrum et arietes, machinas

vineasqueeo quod cincta mari essetmuris non possit adiungere,
infinitam exercitus multitudinem iussit saxa et aggerem comportare et,
expleto medio mari immo freto angustissimo, vicinum littus insulae fecit
continuum; quod cum viderent Tyrii iam iamque perfectum et percus-
sione arietum murorum fundamenta quaterentur, quidquid pretiosum in
auro, argento vestibusque et varia supellectili nobilitas habuit, imposi-
tum navibus, ad insulas asportavit, ita ut, capta urbe, nihil dignum labore
suo inveniret Nabuchodonosor.3

When Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre he was not able to bring his batter-
ing rams, engines, and pent-houses within reach of the walls, because it
was encircled by the sea; he ordered the limitless multitude of his army to

1 Jer., Ep. cxxvi.2, in Hezech. i, praef., iii, praef., vii, praef.; S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Commentariorum
in Hiezechielem Libri XIV, ed. F. Glori, CCSL 75 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1964) vii-viii; J. Kelly,
Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London: Duckworth, 1975) 304-8; M. Williams,
The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2006) 113, 298-301. Recent studies on aspects of Jeromes work as a bibli-
cal commentator include F. Schlatter, A Mosaic Interpretation of Jerome, In Hiezechielem,
Vigiliae Christianae 49 (1995) 64-81, and M. Graves, Judaizing Christian Interpretations of
the Prophets as Seen by Saint Jerome, Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007) 142-56.
2 Ezek. 29.18.
3 Jer., In Hezech. IX, xxix, 17-21; ed. Glori (1964) 415.

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Nebuchadnezzar s siege of Tyre 177

bring together rocks and a mound and, when the intervening strait of the
sea had been filled in at its narrowest point, he joined the nearby shore to
the island. When the Tyrians saw that this work would be finished at any
moment and the foundations of their walls would be shattered by the
striking of the rams, whatever valuables in gold, silver, and clothes and
various goods the nobility had were loaded on ships and they carried
them away to the islands, so that when the city was taken Nebuchadnezzar
should find nothing worthy of his labour.

He then notes that every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled,
as Ezekiel says, because the Babylonians were hauling baskets of earth and
stones, before moving on to the punishment of Egypt.4
Our knowledge of Nebuchadnezzars siege of Tyre, or of Babylonian rela-
tions with Tyre in his reign as a whole, is extremely attenuated, and the infor-
mation probably available to Jerome more slender still.
The evidence from cuneiform documents is highly fragmentary and entirely
circumstantial. This material makes no direct reference to a siege, but there
are indications of the conquest or subjugation of Tyre by the Babylonians.5
A prism text associated with the ceremonies inaugurating Nebucadnezzars
new palace c. 570 BC, after listing a number of court and government officials
and their titles, mentions the kings of Tyre and a few other Levantine cities
(the text is damaged at this point). It has been suggested that the lists represent
the program of a ceremonial procession and that the foreign kings, including
that of Tyre, would have been present as tribute-bearers.6 A Babylonian text
from Tyre, dated to Nebuchadnezzars fortieth year, suggests that Tyre was then

4 Ezek. 29.18. F. Hitzig, Der Prophet Ezechiel (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1847) 227-32 also takes this
verse to refer to the labour of constructing a causeway for siege engines, but does not indicate
that he is indebted to Jerome on this point. C. Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies
of Ezekiel, trans. J. Martin (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1876) i 377, ii 12, likewise takes it that
Ezekiels description of the siegeworks at Tyre and the taking of the city, as well as his refer-
ence to the hard work of the besiegers, presupposes the construction of an embankment to
fill up the strait.
5 D. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon: The Schweich Lectures 1983 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press for the British Academy, 1985) 26-9.
6 E. Unger, Babylon, die heilige Stadt nach der Beschreibung der Babylonier (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1931) 282-94; J. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament,
3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969) 307-8; H. Katzenstein, The History of
Tyre: From the Beginning of the Second Millenium [sic] BCE until the Fall of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire in 538 BCE (Jerusalem: Schocken Institute, 1973) 334; Wiseman (1985) 29, 73-5.

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under the jurisdiction of the Babylonian governor of the Qadesh province.7

Another text dated to the next year mentions the presence of a Babylonian
administrative official (a andabakku) in the city, pointing to the integra-
tion of Tyre into the Babylonian imperial system.8 In his forty-first year (564)
Nebuchadnezzar is reported to have visited Tyre in person, a visit he almost
certainly would not have made to a city which yet retained its independence.9
We may presume from all of this that Tyre had been brought under Babylonian
control perhaps by 570 and no later than 565, but there is no information about
how this happened.
The earliest direct reference to Nebuchadnezzars siege of the city is found
in Ezekiels oracles against Tyre. Ezekiel paints a vivid picture of the Babylonian
hosts descending on Tyre from the north, investing her with elaborate siege-
works, breaching the walls and sacking the city, wreaking havoc and slaugh-
ter amidst the dust raised by their horses and chariots, and reducing Tyre to a
desolation.10 From the historical point of view, at least two problems with this
material have been recognized by modern commentators. First, Ezekiel seems
to have prophesied in anticipation of the siege of Tyre, or of the citys fall at
any rate, and so in ignorance of the outcome of the Babylonian actions at Tyre.
Because of the premium placed on the utterances of Ezekiel, this oracle was

7 British Museum tablet 40546; see T. Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the Histo
rical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, 2nd ed. (London: S.P.C.K., 1903) 401;
Katzenstein (1973) 339; Wiseman (1985) 27-8.
8 E. Unger, Nebukadnezar II. und sein andabakku (Oberkommissar) in Tyrus, Zeitschrift
fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 44 (1926) 314-7; R. Dougherty, Archives from Erech,
Time of Nebuchadrezzar and Nabonidus (Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions, Vol. I)
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923) 25 (no. 94), pl. xiv; Katzenstein (1973) 332-4;
Wiseman (1985) 28.
9 Unger (1926); R. Dougherty, Archives from Erech, Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods
(Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions, Vol. II) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933)
22-4 (no. 135), pl. xxvi; Wiseman (1985) 28. Katzenstein (1973) 332 assumes that this text
refers to Nebuchadnezzar going against Tyre, not to Tyre, and taking personal command
of the lengthy siege.
10 Ezek. 26.7-14. See G. Cooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936) 287-90; M. Vogelstein, Nebuchadnezzars Reconquest
of Phoenicia and Palestine and the Oracles of Ezekiel, Hebrew Union College Annual
23 (1950-51) 199-207; N. Gottwald, All the Kingdoms of the Earth: Israelite Prophecy and
International Relations in the Ancient Near East (New York: Harper & Row, 1964) 311-6;
H. van Dijk, Ezekiels Prophecy on Tyre (Ez. 26,1-28,19): A New Approach (Rome: Pontifical
Biblical Institute, 1968) 14-28; W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of
the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48, trans. J. Martin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983)
21-9, 35-7.

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Nebuchadnezzar s siege of Tyre 179

retained, no matter how far it deviated from how events actually transpired.11
We might commend an editor for the deletion of unhistorical material which
left us with a clearer, if less substantial, picture of what happened, but we are
not to expect such a revision here. Second, it has been noted that the siege-
works described by Ezekiel, a mound and towers against the walls, as well
as the Babylonian cavalry and chariots, are inappropriate to an attack on an
island city such as Tyre was at the time. It is assumed that Ezekiel has taken the
elements of a standard description of the siege of a mainland city and applied
them without adaptation to the siege of Tyre.12 Esarhaddon seems to have
done likewise when he refers to having thrown up earthworks against Baal,
king of Tyre in his monumental account of the conquest of the city, while
Ashurbanipal more plausibly speaks of his blockade of Tyre and reducing the
city by famine, though he still mentions earthworks as well.13 Such stereotyped
narratives have little historical value, of course, since they refer to the sort of
event that took place, not to precisely what happened in a specific incident.
The information on the siege of Tyre from what we take to be reliable his-
torical sources is late, derivative, and sparsely annalistic. All of it survives as
fragments of earlier authors in the writings of Flavius Josephus (wrote until
c. AD 100). He offers an account of Nebuchadnezzar taken largely from the
Babylonian priest Berossus in order to corroborate and elaborate the Biblical
record. This account from Berossus is buttressed with reference to two otherwise
unknown historians, Diocles, who wrote on Persian matters, and Philostratus,
who wrotestrange as the combination may seemIndian and Phoenician
histories.14 Both of them are supposed to record that Nebuchadnezzar besieged
Tyre for thirteen years. The length of the siege is also said to be found in certain
Phoenician records, which have been attributed to Menander of Ephesus,
whom Josephus claims as his principal source on Phoenician matters.15 Taken
together with Josephus statement that Nebuchadnezzar began to besiege Tyre
in his seventh year, the length of thirteen years has given 598/7-583 as the dates
for the siege of Tyre, but there is no firm agreement on this calculation.16 All of

11 Cooke (1936) 287, 329; Vogelstein (1950-51) 198; Zimmerli (1983) 118-9; D. Block, The Book of
Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1997) 42, 147-50.
12 Cooke (1936) 290; Vogelstein (1950-51) 215-7; Zimmerli (1983) 36-7; Block (1997) 42.
13 Pritchard (1969) 292, 295; see Katzenstein (1973) 278, 288-91; Zimmerli (1983) 22-3.
14 Joseph., AJ x.11.1 (228), Ap. i.20 (144); Diocles FGrH 693; Philostratus FGrH 789.
15 Joseph., Ap. i.21 (156), cf. i.18 (116-27); FGrH 783 F 7; Katzenstein (1973) 325; Wiseman
(1985) 27.
16 Joseph., Ap. i.21 (159); Keil (1876) 11; Pinches (1903) 401; W. Fleming, The History of Tyre
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1915) 44; Vogelstein (1950-51) 198, 219-20; Gottwald
(1964) 312-3; K. Freedy & D. Redford, The Dates in Ezekiel in Relation to Biblical,

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this might tell us when the siege of Tyre occurred, but it leaves us in the dark as
to what happened or even as to the result of the siege.
The problems that this mass of material presents to the modern reader did
not occur to Jerome, and not simply because he was ignorant of the cunei-
form documents and had to rely on the Bible and Josephus for his informa-
tion on Tyre (as it happens, he does not seem to have availed himself of
the data offered by Josephus). The difficulties Jerome discovered in treating the
siege of Tyre were determined by the premises and concerns with which
he approached his task as a commentator, and those same premises and con-
cerns determined the solutions he applied to the difficulties he encountered.
The first premise is, not surprisingly, out of step with those of modern Biblical
critics; Jerome held that the words of Scripture were true, unimpeachably reli-
able and not open to doubt. Prophecies had been fulfilled in detail and offered
an augmentation of the historical record. This premise leads ineluctably to
Jeromes chief concern as a commentator, especially on the prophetic books,
that is, to explain those passages which may seem to be erroneous or false, and
so cast doubt on the infallibility of Scripture, as upon examination in fact true
and unexceptionable.
So, for instance, in treating Ezekiels oracle against Tyre Jerome assumes
that everything he said had come to pass and reiterates the words of the proph-
ecy as historical fact.17 He is, he insists, untroubled by the fact that Nicolaus of
Damascus and other Greek writers make no mention of a Babylonian siege of
Tyre; this is just one more instance of gentile writers passing over in silence
events amply attested in Scripture. Nor does Jerome discuss the incongruity of
siegeworks and cavalry being employed against what he knows to have once
been an island city; the solution to this problem is so simple that it can be
tacitly postponed and in the meantime the prophet can be relied upon to have
foreseen events as they transpired. Jerome does, however, linger over the stark
words of the sentence passed against Tyre: nec aedificaberis ultra (thou shalt
be built no more). Here lies the problem, since it was evident to Jerome and
his contemporary readers that the city of Tyre still stood in their own day, the
most noble and beautiful city amongst the Phoenicians. The word of Scripture
might appear to be in error, but, Jerome contends, this is only appearance.
Jerome draws attention to the long-term historical situation of Tyre in order
to clarify the sense in which aedificaberis (you [sing.] will be built or estab-
lished) is intended. The urban entity of Tyre might be rebuilt, but she would

Babylonian and Egyptian Sources, Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970) 469,
481-4; Katzenstein (1973) 326, 328; Zimmerli (1983) 118; Wiseman (1985) 27.
17 Jer., In Hezech. VIII, xxvi, 7-14; ed. Glori (1964) 349-50.

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Nebuchadnezzar s siege of Tyre 181

nevermore be reestablished in imperial dominion, as a queen of peoples, as

she had been under her previous kings. Rather she would draw out her days in
tutelage to the Chaldaean, Macedonian, Ptolemaic, and finally Roman kings,
in turn. The literal veracity of the Bible is preserved in the face of seeming, not
real objections.
The problem that Jerome identifies in Ezekiels oracle against Egypt is
not whether or not Nebuchadnezzar actually conquered the country, even
though there is no clear indication in the historical record that he did so,
and the matter is still debated by modern scholars.18 If the prophet said that
it will happen, Jerome is satisfied that it did. The problem for Jerome, rather,
is that God declares through Ezekiel that He will grant the land of Egypt to
Nebuchadnezzar and his army as wages, because he caused his army to
serve a great service against Tyre, yet had he no wages.19 If Nebuchadnezzars
army had sacked the city of Tyre, a fact which is vouchsafed for Jerome by the
testimony of the prophet, how could they have failed to receive the recom-
pense due their efforts and need to be rewarded with another prize? This
is what calls forth Jeromes ingenuity in explicating a difficult passage. But
Jeromes solution does not depend on allegory or metaphor. For Jerome this is
an historical problem, the apparent inconsistency of two historical statements:
1) the Babylonian army sacked Tyre, and 2) they went without any reward for
their strenuous efforts. The reconciliation of these two statements required a
reconstruction of events at Tyre, and we will now turn to the basis and method
of Jeromes historical reconstruction.
Jerome knew, or thought he knew, something of the course of Nebuchad
nezzars siege of Tyre from the prophecy spoken against the city by Ezekiel.
But nothing in that dire warning precluded the possibility of the Babylonians
looting the city and so taking payment for their troubles. Indeed, such would
have been the expected outcome of a successful siege. But neither did Ezekiels
oracle specifically say that the Babylonians plundered the city and enriched
themselves at the sack of Tyre. Ezekiel does not answer in the prophecy of

18 Gottwald (1964) 317-9; W. Lambert, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Justice, Iraq 27 (1965) 2,

7, 10; Freedy & Redford (1970) 473, 483; R. Thompson, Babylonian Supremacy under
Nebuchadnezzar, in Cambridge Ancient History, 1st ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970) iii 215; A. Spalinger, Egypt and Babylonia: A Survey (c. 620 BC-550 BC), Studien
zur altgyptischen Kultur 5 (1977) 236-41; Wiseman (1985) 39-41; D. Wiseman, Babylonia
605-539, in Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991) iii.2 229-31, 235-6; Block (1997) 151; D. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and
Babylon in the Latter Prophets (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999) 87-9.
19 Ezek. 29.18-20; Jer., In Hezech. XI, xxix, 17-21; ed. Glori (1964) 414-6.

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chapter 26 against Tyre the question raised by the prophecy of chapter 29

against Egypt. What is, however, made explicit in Ezekiels prophecy, I think,
pointed Jerome toward the solution of his conundrum. Ezekiel speaks of a
mound and siege engines being constructed against the walls of Tyre.20 Jerome,
like any well educated man of his day, knew of another siege of Tyre which
involved such devices, indeed the only siege of Tyre in antiquity described in
any detail: that conducted by Alexander the Great in 332.21 Alexanders siege
was famous not only for its impressive siegeworks, but also for the seemingly
insuperable difficulties it presented, the enormous labours it required of the
besiegers, and the devastating sack of the city which was its final outcome,
all of which recall Ezekiels description of the siege of Tyre. Indeed, it appears
that Ezekiels description of Nebuchadnezzars siege of Tyre sufficiently calls
to mind Alexanders siege as to have raised the suggestion by modern schol-
ars that the words attributed to Ezekiel are an interpolation and originally
referred to Alexander and his later, successful siege of the city (rather than
the Babylonian one, taken to be inconclusive).22 Certainly Jerome entertained
no such notion, but the striking similarities of the two sieges of the same city,
along with the paucity of information on any siege of Tyre except Alexanders,
must have impressed upon him the possibility of using the Macedonian siege
as a model for his reconstruction of the Babylonian siege of Tyre. That this was,
in fact, Jeromes method can be demonstrated in detail.
Every ancient history of Alexander includes an account of his siege of Tyre.23
One of these, that of Quintus Curtius Rufus, perhaps composed in the reign of
Augustus (31 BC-AD 14), seems to have been Jeromes principal source, not only
because it was written in his native Latin,24 but also because of the relevance

20 Ezek. 26.8-9.
21 J. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1960) 206-16; A. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 65-7; S. English, The Sieges of Alexander
the Great (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books, 2009) 56-84.
22 C. Torrey, Alexander the Great in the Old Testament Prophecies, in Vom Alten Testament:
Karl Marti zum siegzigsten Geburstage, ed. K. Budde (Giessen: Alfred Tpelmann, 1925)
281-6; N. Messel, Ezechielfragen (Oslo: Jacob Dybwad, 1945) 48-51, 101-2; L. Browne, Ezekiel
and Alexander (London: S.P.C.K., 1952) 4-5, 21-3; cf. Cooke (1936) 290; Vogelstein (1950-51)
215-9; Zimmerli (1983) 24, 37.
23 Diod. Sic., xvii.40.2-46.6; Curt., iv.2.1-4.19; Plut., Alex. 24.2-25.2; Arr., Anab. ii.15.6-24.6; cf.
Justin, Epit. xi.10.10-14; Al. Rom. i.35.
24 Rufin., Apol. ii.9 and Jer., Adv. Rufin. i.30 suggest that Jerome came late to the study of
Greek, perhaps not until his arrival in Antioch in 373; see A. Pease, The Attitude of Jerome
towards Pagan Literature, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological

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Nebuchadnezzar s siege of Tyre 183

of the incidents given special prominence by Curtius to Jeromes account of

the siege of Tyre.25 Perhaps the most telling indication of Curtius influence on
Jerome, though, is not found in his reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzars siege
at all. Jerome explains Ezekiels figure of Tyre as a resplendent ship, destined
for a shipwreck,

per quae significat urbis Tyriae eversionem a rege Nabuchodonosor, sive,

ut multi putant, ab Alexandro rege Macedonum, qui sex mensibus ipsam
urbem obsedisse et cepisse narratur, postquam Dareum vicit in Lycia.26

through which he signifies the overthrow of the city of Tyre by King

Nebuchadnezzar, or, as many think, by Alexander the king of the
Macedonians, who is said to have besieged the same city for six months
and taken it, after he defeated Darius in Lycia.

The critical detail here is that Alexanders siege is said to have lasted for six
months. This is also the length that Curtius gives for the siege.27 The other
authors who indicate how long the siege of Tyre is supposed to have lasted,
Diodorus and Plutarch, however, say that it went on for seven months.28
The fact that Jerome follows Curtius on a precise detail when there were
variants available to him suggests rather strongly that Curtius is his source on
Alexanders siege of Tyre.
We may begin our look at Jeromes reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzars
siege, however, with a point found in all of the Alexander historians, the build-
ing of a mole. Jerome certainly seems to consider this the most important

Association 50 (1919) 152; Kelly (1975) 8, 13-4, 17, 39, 49, 59, 72; Williams (2006) 28-9;
A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Ascetiscism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of
Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 8 n. 34. He
might, therefore, have been most comfortable with Latin sources where they were to
be had.
25 Curt., iv.2.1-4.19. On Curtius account of the siege of Tyre, see W. Rutz, Zur Erzhlungs
kunst des Q. Curtius Rufus die Belagerung von Tyrus, Hermes 93 (1965) 370-82;
J. Atkinson, A Commentary on Q. Curtius Rufus Historiae Alexandri Magni, Books 3 and 4
(Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1980) 293-319.
26 Jer., In Hezech. VIII, xxvii, 4b, 5; ed. Glori (1964) 359.
27 Curt., iv.4.19. To be precise, Curtius says that Tyre was captured in the seventh month
since the siege began, but this is understood by J. Yardley, Quintus Curtius Rufus: The
History of Alexander (London: Penguin, 1984) 61, at least, to mean a duration of six months
for the siege. See Atkinson (1980) 314.
28 Diod. Sic., xvii.46.5; Plut., Alex. 24.3.

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aspect of the siege of Tyre, whether the well attested one of Alexander or the
one of Nebuchadnezzar he is compelled to recreate, an event which funda-
mentally changed the situation of Tyre from that Ezekiel knew to that of his
own day:

Tyrum enim fuisse insulam et nullum habuisse de terra introitum, in grae-

cis latinisque et barbaris historiis legimus, sed postea a Nabuchodonosor
rege Chaldaeorum vel, ut nonnulli affirmant, ab Alexandro rege Mace
donum iactos esse aggeres, et oppugnatione vineisque et arietibus locum
praeparatum ac de insula factam esse paeninsulam29

For Tyre was an island and had no access from the land, as we read in
Greek and Latin as well as barbarian histories, but afterward mounds
were thrown up by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldaeans, or, as not a
few assert, by Alexander, king of the Macedonians, and a place was pre-
pared for the assault, for the battering rams and pent-houses, and from an
island she became a peninsula.

Jerome could take it from Ezekiel that Nebuchadnezzar brought his batter-
ing rams and other siege engines up to the walls of Tyre and wrecked her
defenses,30 but the prophet does not say how he managed this. He may not
discuss it, but Jerome had to deal with the same problem that faces modern
commentators, that Ezekiels description does not seem to account for the fact
that Tyre was built on an island. Jerome, however, could proceed with a surer
step because he was confident that Ezekiel offered a factually reliable account
of the siege. He did not have to determine whether or not Nebuchadnezzars
army breached the walls and took the city, but merely how. He worked under
the not unreasonable assumption that if Nebuchadnezzar took Tyre he did so
in a manner not unlike the way in which Alexander later accomplished the
same task. Alexander brought his siege engines to bear upon the walls of Tyre
both by building a mole across the strait separating the city from the mainland
and by mounting them on ships.31 While the mole is more famous for the dif-
ficulty and effort it involved and for its aftereffects, it was the ship-mounted
rams and catapults which actually effected the critical breach that finally led

29 Jer., In Hezech. VIII, xxvi, 15-18; ed. Glori (1964) 353.

30 Ezek. 26.8-9.
31 Diod. Sic., xvii.40.5, 43.4-7, 45.2, 46.1-3; Curt., iv.2.16, 3.13-15; Plut., Alex. 24.3; Arr., Anab.
ii.18.3, 6, 21.1-2, 4, 22.6-7, 23.1-6.

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Nebuchadnezzar s siege of Tyre 185

to the taking of the city.32 Ezekiel speaks of neither a mole nor ships, but he
does mention horses and chariots.33 Jerome seems to make the sensible infer-
ence that while cavalry would not have been ferried across the straits to storm
a city taken by marines, they might very likely have advanced along a causeway
from the mainland and been in at the kill when the city fell.
In Jeromes description, however, the mole does not serve to make the entry
of Nebuchadnezzars cavalry possible, but to allow the battering rams espe-
cially to do their work. It is worth noting, therefore, that in this regard Jerome
recalls Curtius account of Alexanders siege. While there are no quotations or
lengthy verbal parallels, Jerome does employ terms not dissimilar to those used
by Curtius when describing the construction of the mole and the action of the
rams.34 Curtius speaks of the depth of the sea, which might possibly be filled
in by some superhuman effort (profundum mare, quod vix divina ope posset
inpleri), rocks big enough (saxa tam vasta) for the task, and the work required
that the intervening space might be mounded over (spatium exaggeraretur)
between the city and the opposite shore.35 Jerome has Nebuchadnezzar order
his army to heap together rocks and a mound (saxa et aggerem comportare)
and make the island continuous with the nearby shore once the sea strait in
the middle was filled in (expleto medio mari immo freto). Once again, Curtius
says that Alexander shook the walls with the beat of his rams (arietum pulsu
muros quatit),36 and Jerome speaks of the realization that the foundations of
the walls would be shaken by the striking of the rams (percussione arietum
murorum fundamenta quaterentur). On this point what Curtius neglects to say
may be as important to Jerome as the words he uses. Curtius fails to make it
clear that the crucial breach was effected by the ship-mounted engines,37 and
so might have suggested to Jerome that the mole played a more decisive role in
Alexanders siege of Tyre than it actually did, leading to Jerome making a mole

32 Diod. Sic., xvii.43.4-5, 46.1-2; Arr., Anab. ii.22.6-23.6.

33 Jerome does not seem to consider the mound cast against Tyre (Ezek. 26.8) a mole, since,
while he does refer to Nebuchadnezzars mole as an agger, he translates this mound as an
agger in gyro, that is encircling palisades intended to blockade themainland?city.
34 Jer., In Hezech. IX, xxix, 17-21; ed. Glori (1964) 415.
35 Curt., iv.2.16, Q. Curtius Rufus, Historiae, ed. C. Lucarini (Berlin & New York: Walter de
Gruyter, 2009) 46.
36 Curt., iv.3.13, ed. Lucarini (2009) 49.
37 We might expect him to convey this in his description of the last day of the siege and
the taking of the city (iv.4.10-13), but, as Atkinson (1980) 310 says, Curtius implies that the
siege engines were based on the mole, but from Arrian we learn that these engines made
little impact, whereas the rams mounted on ships effected the decisive break-through.

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the sole means by which Nebuchadnezzars siege engines were deployed in his
reconstruction.
An emphasis on the mole also helps Jerome to deal with the very matter
he is addressing in his reconstruction of the siege of Tyre, namely, the great
service that Nebuchadnezzar served against Tyre. Curtius reports that
Alexanders soldiers balked at the daunting prospect of building a causeway
from the mainland to the city, a work requiring materials to be drawn from all
the surrounding countries and to be executed in the face of particularly rough
seas.38 Curtius is not alone in indicating the impressive scale of the project and
the enormous labour it entailed,39 but he is alone in making this the occasion
for an exhortation by Alexander to his troops which recapitulated the reasons
necessitating the siege, making the passage something of a focus for under-
standing the strategic imperatives of the campaign, as well as the motives
of Alexander.40 Curtius draws further attention to the hard physical labour
involved in the siege when he reports that the Tyrians taunted the Macedonian
soldiers as famed warriors now reduced to carrying loads on their backs like
beasts of burden (armis inclitos dorso sicut iumenta onera gestare) and that the
Macedonians were vulnerable to Tyrian attacks as they were carrying rocks.41
If the Babylonians had had to haul construction materials down to the shore
and heap it in the sea to build a causeway, as the Macedonians did, this would
certainly account for why every head was made bald, and every shoulder
was peeled in the great service they served. As Jerome says, these were the
heads and shoulders of those carrying baskets of earth and stones (gestant-
ium cophinos terrae et lapides).42 Inasmuch as Jeromes object is to explain the
strenuous efforts of the Babylonians at Tyre referred to by Ezekiel, the supposi-
tion that Nebuchadnezzar built a mole, as Alexander did later, makes perfect
sense and Curtius appears to be an eminently likely source on this point.
How then to explain how, after all this effort, the Babylonians should be
denied the wages of their great service against Tyre? Once again, Jeromes
answer is not pure speculation; it is largely based on the accounts of
Alexanders siege of Tyre, and especially that of Curtius, but Jeromes adapta-

38 Curt., iv.2.16, cf. 2.8.

39 Diod. Sic., xvii.40.5, 42.5-6; Plut., Alex. 25.1; Arr., Anab. ii.18.2-5.
40 Curt., iv.2.16-18; cf. Arr., Anab. ii.16.8-18.1, where Alexanders speech outlining the justifica-
tion for the siege of Tyre is addressed only to his commanders and as soon as the Tyrians
have refused him entry into their city.
41 Curt., iv.2.20, 24; cf. Diod. Sic., xvii.41.1, who reports the other jest mentioned by Curtius,
concerning Poseidon, but not the one about beasts of burden.
42 Jer., In Hezech. IX, xxix, 17-21; ed. Glori (1964) 415.

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tions are telling. Jerome explains that as the mole approached and the Tyrians
anticipated the destruction of their walls they, or at least the wealthy amongst
them, loaded their valuables on board ship and sent them away overseas, and
so the wealth of Tyre was gone when Nebuchadnezzar took the city.43 A similar
incident is supposed to have occurred during Alexanders siege of Tyre. Curtius
says that as the siege lengthened and their situation became more dire, the
Tyrians embarked their women and children on ships and evacuated them to
Carthage.44 Justin likewise reports that the Tyrians sent those too old to fight
off to Carthage.45 Diodorus tells a similar story, but he says that the Tyrians
only managed to evacuate a portion of their children, women, and elderly to
Carthage, and so had to stand the siege with most of their population within
the walls.46 A number of historians, moreover, indicate that it was reliance on
aid from Carthage that gave the Tyrians the confidence to resist Alexander,47
but Curtiusas might be expected of a Roman historianaccords the
Carthaginians a particularly prominent place in his account of the siege of
Tyre.48 The Carthaginians, according to him, not only encouraged the Tyrians
to defy Alexander, but their envoys turn up again and again throughout the
course of the siege, and the failure of their promised aid seems crucial to its
outcome.49 Curtius also notes the Carthaginian practice of human sacrifice
when he relates the extremities contemplated by the Tyrians, indicates that
Alexander dismissed the Carthaginian ambassadors he spared at Tyre with a
declaration of war, and recalls in the potted history of Tyre which concludes
his account of the siege that Carthage was among the most famous of her
far-flung colonies.50 The success of the evacuation in Curtius narrative, as well
as its association with what are there more central players, suggests Curtius to
be the most likely model for Jerome on this point.

43 Jer., In Hezech. IX, xxix, 17-21; ed. Glori (1964) 415. G. von Ewald, Commentary on the
Prophets of the Old Testament, Vol. IV: Hzeqil, Yesaya, XL-LXVI (London & Edinburgh:
Williams and Norgate, 1880) 153-4, repeats this, along with other details from Jeromes
commentary as plausible. Gottwald (1964) 320 also suggests, with no reference to Jerome,
that the verses in chapter 29 might be taken to mean that during the course of the siege
the inhabitants had sent away their treasures.
44 Curt., iv.3.20.
45 Just., Epit. xi.10.14.
46 Diod. Sic., xvii.41.1-2.
47 Diod. Sic., xvii.40.3; Just., Epit. xi.10.12-13.
48 Atkinson (1980) 317-8 suggests that this is due to a source Curtius shared with Diodorus.
Cf. Ruth (1965) 379-80.
49 Curt., iv.2.10-12, 3.19-20; see Atkinson (1980) 296, 305.
50 Curt., iv.3.23, 4.18, 19, cf. 3.22; see Atkinson (1980) 306-7.

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Jerome may take Curtius as his model, but he does not depict the events
of Nebuchadnezzars siege as precisely parallel to those of Alexanders. The
divergences are significant. Curtius speaks of the Tyrians evacuating their
women and children, and says that as a consequence they were prepared to
bear whatever might happen more bravely, if only they knew that its most
precious part was beyond the danger facing the community (fortius, quidquid
accideret, laturi, si carissimam sui partem extra sortem communis periculi
habuissent).51 Jerome, however, mentions only the material wealth, the trea-
sures of various kinds, which the Tyrians shipped off from their city and denied
to the Babylonian conqueror. The contrast cannot be accidental. While Curtius
has the Tyrians consider their families their most precious possessions (carissi-
mam sui partem), Jerome has them, to all appearances, take thought for nothing
more than their valuable belongings. Jerome is not merely confining himself to
an explanation of how it might have come about that Nebuchadnezzar did
not receive the wages for his great service against Tyre, he is also character-
izing the Tyrians in a manner consistent with Ezekiels prophecies against
their city, which he has already set out and commented upon. The first of these
(chap. 27) opens by referring to Tyre as the trading house of the peoples
(negotiationi populorum) and Jerome explains its literal sense in terms of the
mercantile enterprises of Tyre, enumerating the citys markets and trade part-
ners and the goods she handled.52 The repeated references here to the isles
(insulae) might explain why Jerome has the Tyrians send their wealth off to
the islands (ad insulas).53 The second oracle likewise dwells upon the stupen-
dous wealth of Tyre.54 The stuff of these prophecies, along with the choice the
Tyrians seem to have made of what to save from Nebuchadnezzar, would indi-
cate that the citizens of Tyre have the same inborn love of business (ingenitus
negotiationis ardor) which Jerome attributes to the Syrians,55 something of an
indictment in itself.
The accounts of Alexanders siege might also have answered a problem
which may or may not have occurred to Jerome, but has been raised by mod-
ern scholarship as an objection to his reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzars
siege. Wallace Fleming, practically the only recent scholar to address Jeromes

51 Curt., iv.3.20, ed. Lucarini (2009) 50-51.

52 Jer., In Hezech. VIII, xxvii; ed. Glori (1964) 357-84.
53 E.g., Jer., In Hezech. VIII, xxvii, 1-3a, 15b, 16, 25b, 32b-36; ed. Glori (1964) 357, 368-71,
378, 383.
54 Jer., In Hezech. IX, xxviii, 1-19; ed. Glori (1964) 385-99.
55 Jer., In Hezech. VIII, xxvii, 15b, 16; ed. Glori (1964) 370.

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ropositions, particularly that Nebuchadnezzar built a mole to Tyre, considers

p
them altogether vitiated by the fact that

...if such a mole had been constructed, it would have grown with the
washup of sands, as Alexanders mole has done. It certainly would have
been no great task for Alexander to construct his mole. These facts, with
the silence of a thousand years, leave no reasonable probability that the
mole was constructed before Alexanders time.56

There are grounds for dismissing Jeromes hypotheses as history, but they do not
include the certainty that any mole to Tyre would have created a permanent
land mass. Jerome was sufficiently familiar with the accounts of Alexanders
siege to know that the Macedonian king found the city an island. So if he pro-
posed that Nebuchadnezzar built a causeway to Tyre before Alexander, he
must also have assumed that this first mole had somehow disappeared before
Alexander arrived. It is the accounts of Alexanders siege themselves which
suggest that a mole to Tyre might be more fragile and less permanent than
time has proven Alexanders to be.57 Curtius, for instance, reports that the
causeway Alexander first began was destroyed by the action of wind and sea,
compelling him to begin a new one headed in a different direction, and that
because of certain portents the Tyrians expected the imminent collapse of the
second mole even as the siege drew to a close.58 Another source corroborates
at least the damage done to the first mole.59 The work of natural forces follow-
ing the construction of Alexanders mole might have made it a permanent part
of the local geography, but an attentive reader of history knew that natural
forces could just as easily eliminate such a structure. Jerome had every reason
to believe that both Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander had been forced to over-
come the difficulties of Tyres island situation.
The traces of Jeromes reconstruction of the siege of Tyre can be found in
the hidden corners of the expository tradition, although not always where
they might be expected. Gregory the Greats voluminous sermons on Ezekiel,
for instance, contain no treatment of the chapters on Tyre, but this neglect is
consistent with Gregorys primary concern for Ezekiels striking visions of the

56 Fleming (1915) 45.

57 N. Marriner, et al., Holocene Morphogenesis of Alexander the Greats Isthmus at Tyre in
Lebanon, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
104 (2007) 9218-23.
58 Curt., iv.3.6-7, 4.5; see Atkinson (1980) 302, 308-9.
59 Diod. Sic., xvii.42.5-6.

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190 garstad

throne of God and the new Temple.60 In the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, which
was written later in the seventh century at the time of the Arab invasion of
Egypt and survives only in a much later Ethiopic translation of an Arab text,
itself a translation of the Coptic or Greek original,61 Nebuchadnezzar is said
to have taken Tyre by having his soldiers pile earth into the strait that sepa-
rated the island from the main and no mention is made of Alexanders siege
of Tyre.62 In the case of such an isolated survival at so many removes from its
original, however, it is practically impossible to tell whether the resemblance
to Jeromes account of events at Tyre results from the influence of Jerome or
from a similar intuition. The passages containing Jeromes reconstruction of
the siege of Tyre which we have quoted are repeated verbatim in Rabanus
Maurus commentary on Ezekiel.63 But while their appearance indicates that
one of the chief figures of ninth-century Latin scholarship was aware of them,
their unaltered state would suggest that he took little interest in them. In spite
of his vexed relationship with Jeromes legacy, Martin Luther took it from him
that Nebuchadnezzar made Tyre from an island into a peninsula and presum-
ably from him also that Tyre was destroyed twice, once by Nebuchadnezzar
and then by Alexander, and so set the imprimatur of his own authority on the
testimony of the contested and often maligned patristic expositor.64 We have

60 Sancti Gregorii Magni homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL

142 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971). On the concerns of Gregory in his sermons, see G. Zinn,
Exegesis and Spirituality in the Writings of Gregory the Great, in Gregory the Great:
A Symposium, ed. J. Cavadini (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995) 168-80.
61 P. Booth, Shades of Blues and Greens in the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, Byzantinische
Zeitschrift 104 (2012) 555-61.
62 John of Nikiu, Chron. xlix; The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, Translated from
Zotenbergs Ethiopic Text, trans. R. Charles (London: Williams & Norgate, 1916) 35.
63 B. Rabani Mauri Commentaria in Ezechielem, x (26, 27), xi (29); Migne, Patrologia Latina
CX 768B, 771D, 802D-803A.
64 M. Luther, Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesammtausgabe, Schriften Teil 2, 13. Band (Weimar:
Hermann Bhlau, 1889) 428, 622-3; Luthers Works, Vol. 19: Lectures on the Minor Prophets
II, Jonah & Habakkuk, ed. H. Oswald (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1974) 114;
Luthers Works, Vol. 20: Lectures on the Minor Prophets III, Zechariah, ed. H. Oswald
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1973) 90. Luthers approach to Jerome is discussed
in detail by J. Lssl, Martin Luthers Jerome: New Evidence for a Changing Attitude, in
Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy, ed. A. Cain & J. Lssl (Farnham: Ashgate,
2009) 237-51. For Jeromes place in the late medieval and early modern period as whole,
see E. Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1985).

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Nebuchadnezzar s siege of Tyre 191

also noted at least a couple of instances of the ideas of Jerome occurring in

modern commentaries, with or without attribution.65
Quintus Curtius Rufus appears in neither Lbecks nor Hagendahls
more exhaustive enumeration of the profane authors known and used by
Jerome.66 But I think a case has been made for adding Curtius to such a list.
More than simply indicating what authors Jerome read, his reconstruction
of Nebuchadnezzars siege of Tyre lets us know how he used the writers, and
the historians especially, that he knew. Histories were quite clearly excepted
from the disavowal of profane literature that supposedly followed his visionary
indictment as a Ciceronian.67 Arthur Stanley Pease long ago recognized that
Jerome found it worthwhile to read and refer to history for at least two reasons,
namely, in order to explicate allegories found in the Bible and to offer moral
exempla for reflection.68 To this list we can now add the utility of secular his-
tory for fleshing out and filling in the blanks of sacred history. And not merely
when Greek and Latin historians give a parallel account of an event in the
Biblical record. Jerome saw fit to refer to analogous events, in this case the later
siege of the same city, in order to restore details not mentioned by Ezekiel for
the purpose of making sense of what the prophet did say. This approach may
seem like so much guesswork and speculation to us, but Jerome was inspired
with a confidence by his trust in the veracity of the Bible. He could be sure
of his hypothesis as long as it accounted for the problems and difficulties he
encountered in the words of Scripture.

65 See Hitzig (1847) 227-32; Keil (1876) i 377, ii 12; von Ewald (1880) 153-4; Gottwald (1964) 320.
66 E. Lbeck, Hieronymus quos nouerit scriptores ex quibus hauserit (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner,
1872); H. Hagendahl, Latin Fathers and the Classics: A Study on the Apologists, Jerome and
Other Christian Writers (Gteborg: Elanders, 1958); idem, Jerome and the Latin Classics,
Vigiliae Christianae 28 (1974) 216-27; cf. F. Glori, Nouvelles sources de Saint Jrme,
Sacris Erudiri 18 (1967-8) 472-7.
67 Jer., Ep. xxii.30; see Kelly (1975) 41-4, 84, 250, 252; Williams (2006) 25-7, 54-5, 134, 161;
N. Adkin, Jerome on Virginity: A Commentary on the Libellus de virginitate servanda
(Letter 22) (Cambridge: Francis Cairns, 2003) 283-97.
68 Pease (1919) 158, 165. See also S. Rebenich, Der heilige Hieronymus und die Geschichte
Zur Funktion der Exempla in seinen Briefen, Rmische Quartalschrift fr christliche
Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 87 (1992) 29-46. Access to historical works were
also necessary for the additions Jerome made to his translation of Eusebius Chronicle;
Kelly (1975) 73-5; Williams (2006) 161-2.

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Acknowledgement

The author would like to express his gratitude to Jim Derksen, the Director
at the Newman Theological College Library, who made available to him the
resources necessary for this paper, and to Amber, Krystin, Carter, Jack, Alice,
and Constance who provided a pleasantly memorable setting for the begin-
ning of the work.

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