A fort... a mount. — These and the following particulars of the siege indicate the use of the ordinary methods as in the attack of a city on the mainland. The explanation of this is doubtless partly in the fact that Palæotyrus, Old Tyre, upon the mainland, was approached in the ordinary way, and partly that Nebuchadnezzar must have contrived a bridge of boats, or some other method of approaching the island across the shoal and narrow channel (1,200 yards), which at that time separated it from the mainland. That if he built a mole it was afterwards removed, is plain from the fact that when Alexander built one, 250 years later, sand accumulated upon it, until the island has now become a peninsula, connected with the shore by a beach of considerable width.
The buckler is that sort of roof made with shields used in ancient warfare by besiegers to defend themselves from the missiles of the besieged. Herodotus (ix. 61, 99, 102) mentions its use among the Persians.