agesilaos wrote:And who, gentle readers controlled the sea [after]the fall of Tyre, mmmh that's right Alexander!
...and as I have pointed out more than once, the Persian fleet in Halicarnassus was in no position to interfere with Alexander's flotilla - even if it knew the date and time of departure ( which it could not of course - by the time a messenger/spy reached Halicarnassus from Miletus, the siege train would have safely arrived in Bargylis ).
Curiously, your position seems to be to try and allege (incorrectly) that the siege train could not have been transported by sea, yet you evidently accept that it was transported by sea from Tyre to Gaza ??
I was merely positing the maximum number of catapults, I agree that most of the work was actually mining, you beat me to the post; you consistently fail to allow for the dismantling off the engines to allow for transport of most parts on mule back, the smaller bolt shooters weighed only about 85 lbs complete, sheds and towers would largly be built on site probably from local materials, Alexander was not dragging a lumber yard across Asia.
A mule can carry up to 300 lbs, but its 'normal' load, certainly in 20th C armies is more like 150-200 lbs. ( we discussed this in the 'Nora' thread ). In passing it might be noted that even the small arrow-shooters on Trajan's column are pulled along in two-mule drawn carts, probably so as not to have to dismantle them. You certainly couldn't transport any of the 4 major components of the 30 mina stonethrower this way.
A siege tower of Alexander's day stood around 90 ft tall, and 4 timbers this long would be required for the uprights ( or conceivably 8 45 ft timbers, carefully scarf jointed to make the 4 uprights), and of course could not be 'green' wood. It is therefore likely that it would be easier to bring these and the rest of the frame, even if local materials could be used to finish it. Pre-fabricated sheds, or at least the frames, too would be easier than building from scratch, even if suitable timbers could be taken from demolished buildings etc. Local materials could certainly be used to make the wickerwork covers of these sheds.
Nor, I think can triereis have cargo piled upon their decks without them capsizing, I have not read that cataphract triereis were hollow, they required the same bench structure and presumably the same supports, and being cataphract the hold area would only be accessed by hatches further complicating the stowage of large wooden members.
Still trying to make a case that the siege train couldn't be transported on triremes ? Even though you accept that the siege train went by sea to Gaza ? Or are you going to try and wriggle through the loophole that Arrian doesn't say what kind of ships were used ?
Certainly having a cargo on deck would raise the metacentre of the vessel, but not so much as to imperil stability. Remember these ships could not go to sea in waves of more than one metre anyway. A trireme in warship mode carried a deck crew of up to 30 men, and 40 marines as well, a deck weight of over 5 tons, which moved around the ship and could, for example, be almost all on one side of the ship defending it. A cargo of 10 tons, spread evenly over the deck, and relatively flat is going to be less de-stabilising than the normal deck crew and marines....
Basically, triereis make lousy transports (they were not modified when carrying hoplites, though the soldiers merely took the place of the rowers on the benches nor was it idleness that prevented them takng up an oar , rowing a trieres was a skilled job which required practice), and that is what Diodoros says Alexander used.....
As the pseudo-Xenophon ( 'Old Oligarch') tells us in 'Ath pol' I.19, practically everyone in Athens, including Hoplites AND their servants could row : "....Many are able to row as soon as they board their ships,[ i.e. ostensibly as passengers] since they have been practising beforehand throughout their whole lives."
...nor were they escorts for a merchant fleet, as Engels seems to imagine; he has them sailing passed Halikarnassos with its 300 Persian ships and the Persians ignoring it (this is indicative of the problems of sythetic reading of the sources). Since you agree that the provisions claimed to have been sent by sea cannot have been is it such a leap to reject a tale of the micro fleet braving the sea in face of 300 Persian vessels?
I'd agree with you that Engels idea is naive to say the least. Alexander was not going to put his flotilla and siege train anywhere within reach of the Persian fleet.
I did not say that the provisions did not go by sea, rather that the grain, unlike the siege train, could not have been transported in triremes - grain required specialised merchantmen, which must have been present . [ Very often merchant auxiliary vessels which served the fleets go unmentioned in our sources]
Again, for the "nth" time, at no time was Alexander's flotilla at risk of encountering the Persian fleet, for the reasons set earlier - several times! Geography and time, not to mention weather, made any interception impossible. To all intents and purposes, Alexander had 'mastery' of the gulf long enough to safely transport his siege train....
I would posit that Diodoros or his source has absorbed the note that Alexander had retained the crews of ten triereis at Miletos while the rest were out gathering firewood, and garbled it into Alexander retaining a number of ships when the fleet was disbanded; Kleitarchos could easily have added the detail of the Athenian contingent and modified the number (his work seems to have a particular interest in things Greek and their worth), the reason, supply and transport could even be Diodoros' own rationalisation, cod analysis is a stock in trade.
What happened to "Paralus' Rule" ?
This is something completely unsupported by any evidence, and essentially invented to circumvent the fact Diodorus tells us straight out that the siege train was transported by sea on something over 20 plus triremes.
And to get back to the theme of my argument, the accounts of Arrian and Diodorus are not irreconcilable. Diodorus' sources happen to mention the transportation of the siege train, and Diodorus includes it, while Arrian and/or his sources don't think the detail worth mentioning.
Onto the siege...
Yes, indeed, and here you might be on stronger ground for an anomaly ! But one last detail regarding the siege train. Initially, when Alexander arrives, sets up camp and attacks the East side by the Mylasa gate, no siege machinery is mentioned ( it has yet to arrive). When it does come, probably down the road leading from Bargylis, arriving outside the Tripylon gate, it is deployed against the walls there on the NW side - the 'demi-lune' on the first map marks Memnon's 'counter wall' sealing off the breach.