It was May of 323 BC and Alexander the Great died in Baghdad, his body didn’t begin to show signs of decomposition for a full 6 days, according to historical accounts.
The 32 year old King of Macedon had spent the past 13 years conquering much of the known world.
From his first battle at age 18 until his death, Alexander was undefeated in battle. He had a reputation for leading his men with great speed, which allowed the smaller forces to reach and break enemy lines before his opponents were ready.
In 334 BC Alexander fortified his own kingdom in Greece, and then crossed into Asia, where he won several more battles. His tactics are still studied in military colleges today.
Alexander’s Persian conquests eventually led to the spread of Greek culture into the Persian nations (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India), and to the establishment of Greco-Buddhism, which is the blending of Buddhism with Greek culture.
Alexander the Great had a great love for philosophy. He apparently loved it so much, that he briefly paused his military campaign in India to have philosophical discussions with the gymnosophists, or “naked philosophers.” (So called because of their rejection of human vanity and clothing).
However, Alexander the Great used to wash his hair with saffron to keep it gleaming and orange.
Dying their hair, eyebrows and facial hair was a common practice for the Ancient Greeks, but at the time, saffron was extremely rare and more expensive than gold.
Education was important to both Alexander’s mother and father, and as a result, he was educated by tutors growing up. Alexander’s first teacher was Leonidas , who was a relative of Phillip.
He was responsible for teaching Alexander math, horsemanship, and archery, but had difficulty controlling him.
Not only did he receive the best scholarly education, he also received the best military education.
Alexander’s favorite tutor was Lysimachus, who made up a game where Alexander would pretend to be the warrior Achilles.
While Phillip II is gaining strength and ground he sends Alexander to be educated by none other than Aristotle- the best scholar of the time.
At age 13, Alexander was tutored by the great philosopher Aristotle. His tutelage lasted for about 3 years, and Aristotle taught him government, philosophy, politics, poetry, drama, and sciences.
Alexander the Great was said to be extremely fond of Homer’s Iliad and kept a copy with him all of the time. The book was a gift from his tutor Aristotle, and he read the work on a regular basis. When Aristotle saw that Alexander was inspired by the epic poem, he created an abridged version for him to take with him on military campaigns.
Calanus, who was one of the Indian philosophers with whom Alexander met in Taxlia (North Pakistan), decided to follow Alexander.
When he became ill in Persies (Southwest Iran), he told Alexander that he planned to commit suicide by self-immolation (setting himself on fire).
As he entered the fire, he allegedly gave a farewell salutation to all but Alexander, telling him that when they met again in Babylon, he would salute him then.
Calanus’ words were basically ignored at the time, but when Alexander later died in Babylon, they were seen as a divine prophecy of his death.
Alexander the Great Receiving News of the Death by Immolation of the Indian Gymnosophist Calanus – Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne – 1672
After the death of Calanus, Alexander decided to organize an Olympics in India to honor him. Not being familiar with Greek sport, Alexander changed his plans, and created a wine-drinking contest instead.
The officers advised Alexander there was a growing amount of insubordination, but it wasn’t going to go away. The soldiers feeling were natural and he was on the brink of mutiny.
He later summoned his officers to his tent to muster the troops as he wanted to talk directly with them.
He addressed them, reminded them of their greatness as an army, praised their courage and perseverance and tried as hard as he could to animate them with desire to proceed forward.
They listened to him in silence with no reply. The officers had understood their troops better. Their feelings were natural and not going to go away.
They still loved their commander and were extremely unwilling to make resistance to his authority, despite his faults.
And though they served with unboundless confidence and virtue which they used to press forward through difficulties and dangers as he led the way, however, they were extremely unwilling to go forward any longer.
They all wish to visit their country and their homes to live out the remainder of their lives, the fruits of all their toils.
One of the troops came forward and delivered him this answer:
We are not changed sir, in our affection to you. We still retain and always will have the same zeal and the same fidelity. We are willing to follow you to the hazard of our lives, to wherever you may lead us.
Still we must respectfully ask you to consider the circumstances in which we are placed. We have done all for you that was possible for a man to do. We have crossed seas and land.
We have marched to the end of the world, and you are now meditating, to go to new Indias, in search for Indians that are unknown to most of them.
Such a thought may be worth of your courage and resolutions, but it surpasses ours. Look at these ghastly faces and the bodies covered in wounds and scars.
Remember how numerous we were when we first set out with you and look how few remain. These are the few that have escaped so many toils and danger, they have neither stregnth nor courage to continue.
Forgive them these desires, so natural to man.
The expression of these sentiments confirmed and strengthened them in the minds of all the soldiers.
Alexander was greatly troubled and distressed.
A disaffection in a small part of an army may be put down by decisive measures; but when the determination to resist is universal, it is useless for any commander however imperious and absolute in temper, to attempt to withstand it.
Alexander, however, was extremely unwilling to yield. He remained 2 days shut up in his tent, the prey to disappointment and chagrin.
His friends raised their ladders again, and pressed on desperately to find and rescue him. Some gathered around him and defended him, while others contrived to open a small gate, where the rest of the army gained admission.
Alexander was rescued; though, when they got him out of the city, there was an arrow three feet long, which could not be extracted sticking into his side through his coat of mail.
The surgeons first very carefully out of the wooden shaft of the arrow, and then, enlarging the wound by incisions, they drew out the barb point.
The soldiers were indignant that Alexander should expose his person in such a fool ish way, only to endanger himself, and to compel them to rush into danger to rescue him with wound which nearly proved fatal.
The loss of blood was attended with extreme exhaustion; still, in the course of a few weeks he recovered.
Alexander’s habits of intoxication and vicious excess of all kinds were continually increasing. He not only indulged in such excesses himself, but he encouraged them in others.
Alexander returned toward Babylon. His friend Hephsestion was with him, sharing with him all the vicious indulgences to which he had become so prone.
Alexander gradually separated himself more and more from his old Macedonian friends, and linked himself more and more closely with Persian associates.
He married Statira, the oldest daughter of Darius and gave the youngest daughter to Hephsestion.
He encouraged similar marriages between Macedonian officers and Persian maidens, as far as he could. They preferred to marry aristocratic Macedonian women.
He seemed to be merging, in every way, his original character and habits of action in the effeminacy, luxury, and vice of the Eastern world, which he had at first so looked down upon and despised.
Alexander’s entrance into Babylon, on his return from his Indian campaigns, was a scene of great magnificence and splendor.
Ambassadors and princes had assembled there from almost and the nations of the earth to receive and welcome him, and the most ample preparations were made for processions, shows, parades, and spectacles to do him honor.
The whole country was in a state of extreme excitement, and the most expensive preparations were made to give him a reception worthy of one who was the con queror and monarch of the world, and the son of a god.
They informed him that they had found indubitable evidence in the stars that, if he came into Babylon, he would hazard his life.
They accordingly begged him not to approach any nearer, but to choose some other -city few his capital. Alexander was very much perplex ed by this announcement.
His mind weakened, but it was not merely by the debilitating influence of vicious indulgence on the nervous constitution that this effect was produced.
It was, in part, the moral influence of conscious guilt. Guilt makes men afraid. It not only increases the power of real dangers, but predisposes the mind to all sorts of imaginary fears.
Alexander was very much troubled at the announcement. He suspend ed his march, and began anxiously to considered what to do.. .
At length the Greek philosopher came to him and reasoned with him on the subject, persuading him that the science of astrology was not worthy of any belief.
The Greek had no faith in astrology.
He advanced and made his entry the greatest possible parade and splendor As soon, however, as the excitement of the first few days had passed away, his mind relapsed again, and he became anxious, troubled, and unhappy.
Hephaestion, his great personal friend and companion, had died while he was on the march toward Babylon. He was brought to the grave by diseases produced by dissipation and vice.
Alexander was very much moved by his death. It threw him at once into a fit of despondency and gloom. It was some time before he could at all overcome the melancholy reflections and forebodings which this event produced.
He determined, as soon as he arrived in Babylon, he would do all possible honor to Hephtestion’s memory by a magnificent funeral.
He sent orders to all the cities and kingdoms and collected money .
As soon as the funeral obsequies of Hephrestion were over, Alexander’s mind relapsed again into a state of gloomy melancholy.
This depression, caused, as it was, by previous dissipation and vice, seemed to admit of no remedy or relief but in new excesses.
The traces, however, of his former energy so far remained that he began to form magnificent plans for the improvement of Babylon.
He even tore down the Tower of Babylon, along with many other things, to in his mind “build it better”.
He commenced the execution of some of these plans most of them remained unfinished.
His time was spent, in short, in strange alternations : resolution and energy in forming vast plans one day, and utter abandonment to all vice the next.
It was a mournful spectacle to see his formed greatness of soul still struggling on, though more and more faintly, as it became gradual.
The scene was at length suddenly terminated in the following manner : On one occasion, after he had spent a whole night in drinking and carousing, the guests, when the usual time arrived for separating, proposed that, instead of this, they should begin anew, and commence a second banquet at the close of the first.
Alexander, half intoxicated already, entered warmly into this proposal. They assembled, accordingly, in a very short time.
There were 20 present at this new feast Alexander, to show how far he was from having exhausted his powers of drinking, he began to pledge each one of the company individually.
Then he drank to them all together.
depicts the drinking contest between Bacchus and Hercules in progress
There was a very large cup, called the bowl of Hercules, which he now called for, and, after having filled it to the brim, he drank it off to the to the health of one of the company present, a Macedonian named Proteas.
This feat being received by the company with great applause, he ordered the great bowl to be filled again, and drank it off as before.
The work was now done.
His faculties and his strength soon failed him, and he sank down to the floor.
They bore him away to his palace. A violent fever intervened, which the physicians did all in their power to allay.
As soon its his reason returned a little, Alexander aroused himself from his lethargy, and tried to persuade himself that he should recover.
He began to issue orders in regard to the army, and to his ships, as if such a turning of his mind to the thoughts of power and empire would help bring him back from the brink of the grave toward which he had been so obviously tending.
He was determined, in fact, that he would not die.
He soon found, however, notwithstanding his efforts to be vigorous and resolute, that his strength was fast ebbing away.
The vital powers had received a fatal wound, and he soon felt that they could sustain themselves but little longer.
He came to the conclusion that he must die. He drew his signet ring off from his finger; it was a token that he felt that all was over.
Macedonian Sun Ring of Alexander The Great
He handed the ring to one of his friends who stood by his be-side. ” When I am gone,” said he, ” take my body to the Temple of Zeus Ammon, and inter it there.”
The generals around him advanced to his bedside, and kissed his hand. Their old affection for him revived when they saw he was about to take leave of them forever.
They asked him to whom he wished to leave his empire. ” To the most worthy,” doubtless, because he was too weak and exhausted to think of such affairs.
He knew, probably, that it was useless for him to attempt to control the government of his empire after his death. He said, in fact, that he foresaw that the decision of such questions would give rise to some strange funeral games after his decease. Soon after he died.
The palaces of Babylon were immediately filled with cries of mourning at the death of the prince, followed by bitter and interminable disputes about the succession.
It had not been the aim of Alexander’s life to establish firm and well settled governments in the countries that he conquered, to encourage order, and peace, and industry among men, and to introduce system and regularity in human affairs.
The result might have been foreseen. The whole vast field of his conquests became, for many long and weary years after Alexander’s death, prey to the most ferocious and protracted civil wars.
Each general and governor seized the power which Alexander’s death left in his hands, and endeavored to defend him self in the possession of it against the others leaving devastation and misery in Europe and Asia for many years, during the slow and terrible process of return to their original condition.
At Alexander’s death the generals who were in his court at the time assembled forthwith, and made an attempt to appoint some one to take the immediate command.
They spent a week in stormy debates on this subject. Alexander had left no legitimate heir, when he had declined to do so on his deathbed.
Among his wives — if, indeed, they may be called wives — there was one named Roxanne, who had a son not long after his death. This son was ultimately named his successor ; but, in the mean time, a certain relative named Aridseus was chosen by the generals to assume the command.
The selection of Aridseus was a sort of compromise.
He had no talents or capacity whatever, and was chosen by the rest on that very account, each one thinking that if such an imbecile as Aridseus was nominally the king, he could himself manage to get possession of the real power. Aridseus accepted the appointment. Later Alexander’s wife and heir were killed.
Sysigambis, the bereaved and widowed mother of Darius, would have been among those who would have exulted most highly at the conqueror’s death; but history tells us that, instead she mourned over it with a protracted and inconsolable grief.
Alexander had been the enemy of her son, yet a faithful and generous friend to her. He had treated tor, at all times, with respect and consideration, had supplied all her wants, and ministered, in every way, to her comfort.
She had gradually learned to love him as a son, in fact always called her mother.
She lost all desire for food, and refused it like others who are suffering great mental anguish. They said she starved herself to death ; but it was, probably, grief and despair at being left alone, in her declining years, so hopelessly friendless.
The Athenian commonwealth, as well as all the other states of Southern Greece, had submitted very reluctantly to the Macedonian supremacy. They had resisted Philip, and Alexander.
Their opposition had been suppressed and silenced by Alexander’s vengeance on Thebes, but it never was really subdued.
Demosthenes, the orator, who had exerted so powerful an influence against the Macedonian kings, had been lent into banishment, and all outward expressions of discontent were restrained.
The discontent and hostility existed still, however, and was ready to break out anew, with redoubled violence, the moment that the terrible energy of Alexander himself was no longer to be feared.
Because the mews arrived at Athens — for at first it was a mere rumor — that Al Alexander was dead in Babylon, the whole city was thrown into a state of the most tumultuous joy.
The citizens assembled in the public places, and congratulated with expressions of the greatest exultation They were for proclaiming their independence and declaring war against Macedon on the spot.
Some of the older and more sagacious of their counselors were; however, more, composed.
They recommended a little delay, to see whether the news was really true Phoofca, in particular, who was one of the prominent statesmen of the city, endeavored to quiet the excitement of the people.
“There is time,enough. If Alexander is really dead today, he will be dead tomorrow, and the next day, There will be time enough for us to act with deliberation and discretion.”
Just and true as this view of the subject was, there was too much of rebuke and satire in it to have much influence with those to whom it was addressed.
The people were resolved on war. They sent commissioners into all the states of the Peloponnesus to organize a league, offensive and defensive, against Macedon.
They recalled Demosthenes from his banishment, and adopted all the necessary military measures for establishing and maintaining their freedom.
The return of Demosthenes to the city was like the triumphal entry of a conqueror, at the time of his recall he was on an island about 40 miles southwest of Athens.
They sent a public galley to receive him, and to bring him to the land.
Demosthenes Declaiming by the Seashore 1859 Eugène Delacroix
It was a galley of three banks of oars, and was fitted up in a styled some distance back from the sea,on a small port, called the Piraeus, at the shore— a long, straight avenue leading from the port to the city.
The galley by which Demosthenes was conveyed landed at the Piraeus. All the civil and religious authorities went down to the port, in a grand procession, to receive and welcome the exile on his arrival, and a large portion of the population followed in the train, to witness the spectacle, and to swell by their acclamation the general expression of joy.
In the mean time, the preparations for Alexander’s funeral had been going on, upon a great scale of magnificence and splendor.
It was 2 years before they were complete. The body had been given, first, to be embalmed, according to the Egyptian and Chaldean customs, and then been placed in a sort of sarcophagus, in which it was to be conveyed to its long home Alexander, it will be remembered, had given directions that it should be taken to the temple of Zeus Ammon, in the Egyptian oasis, where he had been pronounced the son of a god
At all events, on his orders, and the authorities who were left in power at Babylon after his death, prepared to execute them. It was a long journey.
To convey by a regular funeral procession, formed as soon after the death as the arrangements could be made, from Babylon to the eastern frontiers of Egypt, a distance of a 1,000 miles. Alexander’s had a was a simple burial procession, going from the palace where he died to the proper cemetery.
The greatness of it result ed simply from the magnitude of the scale on which every thing pertaining to the mighty here was performed, for it was nothing but a passage from the to the burial -ground on his own estates, after all.
The accounts of the splendor are almost incredible. The spokes and laves of the wheels were overlaid with gold, and the axles, where they appeared outside at the centers of the wheels were adorned with massive golden ornaments.
The wheels and axle-trees were so large, and so far apart, that there was supported upon them a platform or floor for the carriage 12 ft wide and 18 ft long.
On it there was erected a magnificent pavilion, supported by Ionic columns, and profusely ornamented, both within and without, with purple and gold. The interior constituted an apartment, more or less open at the sides, and resplendent within with gems and precious stones.
A chamber of considerable size, had ample room within, a throne, raised some steps, and placed back on the platform, profusely carved and gilded.
It was empty; but crowns, representing the various nations over whom Alexander had reigned, were hung on it At the foot of the throne was the coffin, made, it is said, of solid gold.
Costly aromatic perfumes, filled the air with their odor. The arms Alexander wore were laid out in view.
The exact cause of Alexander’s death is unknown. Historians have debated the issue for centuries, attributing it to poison, malaria, typhoid fever or other maladies. What is agreed upon is that the Macedonian king died in early June 323 BC while suffering a high fever that had lasted 10 days.
Just 32 years old, he had conquered an empire stretching from the Balkans to modern Pakistan, and was poised on the edge of another invasion when he fell ill and died after 12 days of excruciating suffering.
Since then, historians have debated his cause of death, proposing everything from malaria, typhoid, and alcohol poisoning to assassination by one of his rivals.
But in a bombshell new theory, a scholar and practicing clinician,Dr. Katherine Hall, a senior lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand suggests that Alexander may have suffered from the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which caused his death.
She also argues that people might not have noticed any immediate signs of decomposition on the body for one simple reason—because Alexander wasn’t dead yet.
In fact, she points out, he was also known to have developed a “progressive, symmetrical, ascending paralysis” during his illness.
And though he was very sick, he remained compos mentis (fully in control of his mental faculties) until just before his death.
Hall argues that GBS, a rare but serious autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks healthy cells in the nervous system, can explain this combination of symptoms better than the other theories advanced for Alexander’s death.
She believes he may have contracted the disorder from an infection of Campylobacter pylori, a common bacterium at the time.
According to Hall, Alexander likely got a variant of GBS that produced paralysis without causing confusion or unconsciousness.
While speculation over what exactly killed Alexander is far from new, Hall throws in a curveball by suggesting he might not even have died when people thought he did.
She argues that the increasing paralysis Alexander suffered, as well as the fact that his body needed less oxygen as it shut down, would have meant that his breathing was less visible.
Because in ancient times, doctors relied on the presence or absence of breath, rather than a pulse, to determine whether a patient was alive or dead, Hall believes Alexander might have been falsely declared dead before he actually died.¹
My cousins wife also has Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), it is extremely rare, and she had to be induced into a coma because the pain was unbearable, though paralyzed. Its likely Alexander suffered greatly.
She is hospitalized repeatedly from complications by specialists who are still trying to understand the disease. They could only take a handful of cases to study them thoroughly, so she even had to write an essay on why they should treat her.
Her’s was caused by a flu shot, buy the exact cause of Guillain-Barre syndrome is unknown- it is often preceded by an infectious illness such as a respiratory infection or the stomach flu.
“… he lay now in continual fever the whole night.”
The following description of the death of Alexander was written by Arrian a Greek historian who wrote his account approximately 350 years after the event.
Although not a contemporary of Alexander, Arrian based his account on the Royal Diaries – contemporaneous chronicles of Alexander’s campaign. We join Arrian’s account as Alexander begins to feel ill.
“A few days later he (Alexander) had performed the divine sacrifices (those prescribed for good fortune and others suggested by the priests) and was drinking far into the night with some friends.
He is said to have distributed sacrificial victims and wine to the army by detachments and companies. Some state that he wanted to leave the drinking-party and go to bed, but then Medius met him, the most trusty of his Companions, and asked him to a party, for he promised that it would be a good one.
Day 1
The Royal Diaries tell us that he drank and caroused with Medius. Later he rose, had a bath and slept. He then returned to have dinner with Medius and again drank far into the night. Leaving the drinking, he bathed, after which he had a little to eat and went to sleep there. The fever was already on him.
Day 2
Each day he was carried on his couch to perform the customary sacrifices, and after their completion he lay down in the men’s apartments until dusk. During this time he gave instructions to his officers about the coming expedition and sea-voyage, for the land forces to be ready to move on the fourth day, and for those sailing with him to be prepared to cast off a day later. He was carried thence on his couch to the river, where he boarded a boat and sailed across to the garden where he rested again after bathing.
Day 3
The next day, he again bathed and performed the prescribed sacrifices. He then entered his room, lay down and talked to Medius. After ordering the officers to meet him in the morning, he had a little food. Carried back to his room, he lay now in continual fever the whole night.
Day 4
In the morning he bathed and sacrificed. Nearchus and the other officers were instructed to get things ready for sailing two days later.
Day 5
The following day, he again bathed and sacrificed, and after performing them, he remained in constant fever. But in spite of that he summoned the officers and ordered them to have everything quite ready for the journey. After a bath in the evening, he was now very ill.
Day 6
The next day, he was carried to the house by the diving place, where he sacrificed, and in spite of being very poorly, summoned the senior officers to give them renewed instructions about the voyage.
Day 7
The next day he was carried with difficulty to perform the sacrifices, and continued to give orders just the same to his officers about the voyage.
Day 8
The next day, though very weak, he managed to sacrifice. He asked the generals to stay in the hall, with the brigadiers and colonels in front of the doors. Now extremely sick, he was carried back from the garden to the Royal Apartments. As the officers entered, he clearly recognized them, but he said not a word to them.
Days 9 and 10
He had a high fever that night;another day as well. all the next day and for another day as well.
This information comes from the Royal Diaries, where we also learn that the soldiers wanted to see him, some hoping to see him before he died and others because there was a rumor that he was already dead, and they guessed that his death was being kept back by his personal guard, or so I think.
Many pressed into the room in their grief and longing to see Alexander. They say that he remained speechless as the army filed past him. Yet he welcomed each one of them by a nod with his head or a movement of his eyes.
The Royal Diaries say that Peithon, Attalus, Demophon, Peucestas, Cleomenes, Menidas and Seleucus spent the night in the temple of Serapis and asked the god whether it would be better and more profitable for Alexander to be carried into the temple to pray the god for his recovery.
A reply came from the god that he should not be brought into the temple, but that it would be better for him to remain where he was. The Companions brought this news, and, shortly after, Alexander died; for this was what was better. That is the end of the account given by Aristoboulos and Ptolemy.”
Like many details of his death, how Alexander’s body was preserved during the time before his transfer to Egypt is one of speculation, but in 1889, E.A. Wallis Badge put forth the idea that he was preserved in a vat of honey.
Honey is known to have a preserving effect, and it was a practice often used in ancient cultures to embalm bodies. The honey in Alexander’s coffin would have prevented the body from decomposing during the long journey to Egypt.
He was one of history’s greatest military minds who—as King of Macedonia and Persia—established the largest empire the ancient world had ever yet seen.
By age 30, he’d created a vast empire that stretched from Greece to India and he’s considered one of the greatest military leaders in history.
He became King at age 20, after his father Phillip II of Macedonia was assassinated.
At age 25, he has his eyes set on the Persian Empire and begins his attack on Egypt.
The Egyptians held Alexander as a liberator, freeing the Egyptians from the Persian grasp.
Due to the sheer scale of these wars, and the fact that Alexander was generally undefeated in battle, he has been regarded as one of the most successful military commanders of all time. By the time of his death, he had conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks.
Although being successful as a military commander, he failed to provide any stable alternative to the Achaemenid Empire—his untimely death threw the vast territories he conquered into civil war.
He had wanted his father to be placed in a tomb as great as the pyramids, but the world was so torn apart, it was never able to be built.
Tomb of Holding Ashes of Phillip II of Macedonia
After reconfirming Macedonian rule by quashing a rebellion of southern Greek city-states and staging a short but bloody excursion against Macedon’s northern neighbors, Alexander set out east against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, under its “King of Kings” (the title all Achaemenid kings went by), Darius III, which he defeated and overthrew.
Alexander had already made more plans prior to his death for military and mercantile expansions into the Arabian Peninsula, after which he was to turn his armies to the west (Carthage, Rome, and the Iberian Peninsula), but they were never realized.
