could bring moveable forts close up to the walls, and cast up banks against them, and batter them with his engines, or undermine them with spade and mattock.  When a breach was effected, he could pour his horse into the streets, and ride down all opposition.  It is the capture of the continental city which Ezekiel describes when he says:[14231] “Thus saith the Lord God:  Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.  He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field; and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee.  And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.  By reason of the abundance of his horses, their dust shall cover thee; thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horseman, and of the wheels and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.  With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets:  he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.  And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses:  and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.”  But the island city did not escape.  When continental Phoenicia was reduced, it was easy to impress a fleet from maritime towns; to man it, in part with Phoenicians, in part with Babylonians, no mean sailors,[14232] and then to establish a blockade of the isle.  Tyre may more than once have crippled and dispersed the blockading squadron; but by a moderate expenditure fresh fleets could be supplied, while Tyre, cut off from Lebanon, would find it difficult to increase or renew her navy.  There has been much question whether the island city was ultimately captured by Nebuchadnezzar or no; but even writers who take the negative view[14233] admit that it must have submitted and owned the suzerainty of its assailant.  The date of the submission was B.C. 585.

Thus Tyre, in B.C. 585, “fell from her high estate.”  Ezekiel’s prophecies were fulfilled.  Ithobal II., the “prince of Tyrus” of those prophecies,[14234] whose “head had been lifted up,” and who had said in his heart, “I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the waters,” who deemed himself “wiser than Daniel,” and thought that no secret was hid from him, was “brought down to the pit,” “cast to the ground,” “brought to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that beheld him."[14235] Tyre herself was “broken in the midst of the seas."[14236] A blight fell upon her.  For many years, Sidon, rather than Tyre, became once more the leading city of Phoenicia, was regarded as pre-eminent in naval skill,[14237] and is placed before Tyre when the two are mentioned together.[14238]