Alexander the Great ruled more than 2 thousand years ago, but his fame still does not fade. This brilliant commander managed to conquer half the world, and died quite young - at the age of less than 33 years. The death did not happen on the battlefield. The cause of death was an illness accompanied by abdominal pain, vomiting and weakness. This happened on June 10 or 11 in 323 BC.
The sudden illness and death at a young age of the legendary commander, who was recognized as a genius during his lifetime, a ruler whose fame did not fade throughout history, gave rise to many versions and assumptions, from simple to the most intricate.
The exact cause of death of Alexander the Great will probably never be established. His biography was overgrown with a huge number of myths and legends, since the popularity of the kings who accomplished so many conquests was fueled by propaganda no worse than modern ones. However, history and archeology find new facts, even if the object of study belongs to ancient times.
Illness and sudden death
Alexander was less than 33 years old when he entered Babylon through the Western Royal Gate in May 323 BC. e. His state of health and nerves at this time was not ideal. The deterioration began several months ago. The ruler suffered from a neck injury, wounds, depression, and drank a lot. However, the subjects did not expect such a quick end to their master.
The date of death is called the 10th or 11th of June.
Symptoms of a high fever appeared in the commander a week before his death:
- chills;
- sweating;
- weakness.
When describing Macedonsky's disease, they also mention severe abdominal pain, convulsions, vomiting, a rare pulse and clouding of consciousness. Three days before his death, Alexander lost the ability to speak.
Versions about the causes of death
Of course, suspicions of deliberate poisoning by someone from Alexander’s close circle could not ignore the death of such a great man. For various reasons, the viceroy of the king in Macedonia, Antipater and even Aristotle, were nominated for the role of poisoner.
However, most historians are still inclined to believe that the cause of Alexander the Great's death was natural. Most likely:
- malaria;
- alcoholic pancreatitis.
Most likely, one of these diseases was superimposed on the general weakening of the body due to wounds, infections, depression and alcohol consumption. Alexander was not an alcoholic in the modern sense of the word; he was never drunk the day before or during the battle. But during feasts, which could last for several days in a row, he always got drunk, which was quite consistent with the traditions of that time.
The ruler developed mental anguish because a year ago his close friend and lover Hephaestion suddenly died from an illness similar to his own.
There is a description of his last feast. At the very end, when Alexander was going to bed, one of those feasting proposed a final toast. Alexander was given a full jug of wine. Having drained it to the bottom, the king fell to the floor in terrible convulsions. The convulsions and vomiting continued for several days, the ruler was speechless and stopped recognizing those around him.
Such symptoms correspond to the description of alcoholic pancreatitis. This inflammatory disease that affects the pancreas is very difficult and often leads to the death of not only alcoholics, but also those who drink a large dose of alcohol, especially low-quality alcohol.
Typhus, which could also lead to death, was not uncommon in Babylon. This infectious disease, accompanied by fever and clouding of consciousness, fully corresponds to the description of Alexander’s last torment.
It is possible that Alexander contracted malaria, the course of which could have weakened the body so much that the pneumonia that developed as a result of it killed the king. During the Indian campaign, Alexander damaged his lung. The arrow wounded him in the chest, and air came out of the wound along with the blood. The wound was severe, and it could lead to pneumonia later.
One of the most recent versions is that the king was poisoned by the juice of a poisonous plant called white hellebore. It may have been given to him by doctors for medicinal purposes, since it was used by the Greeks as an emetic and also as a means of driving away evil spirits.
Burial place
The body of Alexander the Great was embalmed by Egyptian embalmers who arrived in Babylon. According to another version, the body was kept in a barrel of honey for two years before the funeral in Egypt.
There is a version that the coffin with the body was transported to Memphis, and then to Alexandria in Egypt. He stayed there for many years. Other rulers of Antiquity, such as Julius Caesar, Caligula, Octavian Augustus, and Caracalla, made a pilgrimage to Alexander’s tomb. They said that Caligula removed the breastplate from Alexander's mummy and wore it himself.
The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (late 2nd century AD) ordered the tomb to be walled up, and since then the coffin with the remains of the great commander disappeared without a trace.
There is a famous ancient Sidonian sarcophagus, which is sometimes called the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. But it did not belong to the commander, but, presumably, to King Abdalonim, who lived at the same time. On one side of the sarcophagus there is a bas-relief depicting a horseman wearing a lion helmet. Many believe that this is Macedonian.
There is a legend according to which the body of the famous ancient ruler is still kept in a glass coffin and golden armor, in a secret tomb in the ruins of ancient Alexandria. In fact, no one knows the burial place of Alexander the Great. One can only guess about it.
short biography
The date of birth of Alexander III the Great of the Argead dynasty has been controversial among historians. Plutarch indicated the conqueror's birthday as July 20, 356 BC. e., and Arrian attributed it to the beginning of October. Myths say that he was born on the very night when Herostratus burned the temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
The father of the great ruler, King Philip II of Macedonia, prepared Alexander for the throne from childhood and raised him to be a future warrior. Olympias, his mother, was the daughter of the king of Epirus and, according to legend, descended from Achilles, the hero of the Trojan War. When Alexander ascended the throne, many of his contemporaries began to worship him as a deity.
Studies
Although Alexander was born in the capital of Macedonia, the city of Pella, the boy studied in Mieza with Leonidas and Lysimachus. The first instilled in the future ruler a disdain for comfort and the ability to be content with a Spartan environment, and the second instructed him in ethics and rhetoric.
When the young man turned thirteen, Aristotle himself became his teacher. The great thinker taught the future ruler, first of all, politics, philosophy and ethics. The sciences also included medicine and literature.
Philip II, according to not only modern historians, but also some ancient authors, was a better ruler for his people than his son, although he did not conquer as many territories during his reign.
At the Battle of Chaeronea, which brought Greece back under Macedonian rule, Alexander commanded the right flank and defeated the enemy. He was 18 years old, and his military success demonstrated the young heir's readiness to take the throne. Alexander said at the time that as long as his father was alive, he would not do anything great.
Conquest of territories
In 336 BC. e. Philip was killed, and perhaps not without the participation of his wife and son. Alexander was proclaimed the new king of Macedonia.
First of all, the young ruler suppresses the uprisings in Greece and establishes complete power over it. He then invades Persia, not intending to stop there. Just four years later, having captured this great empire, Alexander proclaims himself king of Asia.
Having conquered Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander invades India. But his army refuses to go further, and the commander is forced to turn home.
Arriving in Babylon and not in the best physical shape, Alexander hatches plans for an invasion of the Arabian Peninsula. These plans did not come true; Alexander died suddenly, without leaving a will or order about who would be the new ruler of the state.
Alexander the Great received a good education, and medicine was not the last subject there. “The king was interested not only in the abstract side of this science, but... came to the aid of his sick friends, prescribing various methods of treatment and treatment regimen,” he wrote about him Plutarch in Comparative Lives.
One can only guess how Alexander treated his comrades. However, he probably knew field surgery very well. Even an ordinary warrior of that time was an expert in stab and chopped wounds - let alone a commander. It can also be argued that the king was well versed in poisonous and medicinal herbs. During the Asian and Indian campaigns, he compiled a herbarium and sent the results to his teacher, philosopher and physician Aristotle.
Bust of Alexander the Great as Helios. Capitoline Museums (Rome). Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Jean-Pol GRANDMONT
Lame conqueror?
It is not known who and for what reasons first began to attribute illnesses to Macedonsky that he never suffered from. But stories about them are still passed on from mouth to mouth and have already begun to seem true to some. So, many are sure that Alexander was one-eyed, lame, and at the same time suffered from epilepsy. This is wrong. It was not Alexander who was one-eyed, but his father Philip. His son suffered from epilepsy Hercules. The treasurer (and embezzler) was lame Harpal, one of the conqueror's friends and associates.
But this does not mean that Alexander himself was absolutely healthy. He could declare himself as much as he liked as the son of the god Zeus, immortal and not susceptible to disease. In reality it was different.
Court sculptor of Macedon Lysippos This is how he depicted his king: the chin is raised, the face is turned to the right, the head is tilted back and to the left. Try to reproduce this pose - and you will immediately be accused of contempt for the human race... In his work, Lysippos adhered to the instructions of Aristotle, who said: “One should not go against nature, but represent the greatest of all living naturally.” So is the image real? At the time, Alexander may have suffered from Brown syndrome. This is a rare form of strabismus. If a person with such a disease tries to hold his head straight, objects will appear double. But turning the head like a sculpture can compensate for vision. So the point is not at all about the king’s contempt for “mortals,” but about illness. It can be congenital or acquired. In this case, it’s more likely the latter - in his youth the conqueror received a serious head injury, accompanied by partial loss of vision.
Alexander: - Ask me whatever you want! Diogenes: - Don’t block the sun for me! (Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1818). Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Different eyes
He had no luck with his eyes at all. Or luck, depending on how you look at it. One of his chroniclers, Arrian, mentioned: “One of his eyes was the color of the sky, the other the color of the night.” This is called heterochromia of the eye, that is, different colors. The thing is again rare, occurring in about 0.5% of people.
In the old days, the owner of such eyes was suspected of having connections with the other world. The priests of the peoples conquered by Alexander literally trembled at his gaze. Mystical fears were in vain. If anyone should have thought, it should have been Alexander himself. According to research by modern iridodiagnosticians (doctors who make diagnoses based on the iris), heterochromia indicates congenital weakness of the gastrointestinal tract. The doctors of antiquity also guessed something like this, since they advised the king to be as abstinent as possible in food.
Alexander cuts the Gordian knot. (Jean-Simon Berthelemy, late 18th-early 19th centuries) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Nine strokes
Alexander did not suffer from any other chronic diseases. According to the evidence, he required serious medical attention only nine times. Eight of them fit into the “occupational risks” of the conqueror of half the world. Here is how Plutarch lists them: “At Granicus, his helmet was cut with a sword, penetrating to the hair and bone of the skull. At Issus, the king was wounded in the thigh with a sword. Near Gaza he was wounded by a dart in the shoulder, and near Maracanda by an arrow in the shin so that the split bone protruded from the wound. In Hyrcania - a stone to the back of the head... In the area of the Assakans - an Indian spear to the ankle. In the region of the malls, an arrow two cubits long, piercing the shell, wounded him in the chest and lodged deep in the bones near the nipple. There they struck him in the neck with a mace.”
Once again the king found himself to blame. After a rapid march to the city of Tarsus, heated, he decided to swim in a mountain river. Coming out of the water, he “fell as if struck by lightning, lost the power of speech and spent about a day unconscious, barely showing signs of life.” Apparently it was a stroke.
The trust of Alexander the Great in the doctor Philip (art. G. Semiradsky, 1870) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Death at the bottom of the glass
The king was raised to his feet by the doctor Philip. With the help of what drug is not clear. It is only known that Philip and the other doctors categorically forbade the king from drinking alcoholic libations. But Alexander continued to indulge in wine. After the final victory over Darius he drank continuously for 22 days. Then, in India, he even organized drinking games - who would outdrink whom. The winner was a certain Greek named Miss, who drank about 4 khoy (approximately 13 liters) of wine. True, he and 40 other people died three days later.
The day before his death, Alexander drank about 8 liters of wine. The next day, in the midst of the feast, he drained the cup of Hercules and writhed with pain in his stomach.
Alexander meets the Indian king Porus, captured in the battle on the Hydaspes River. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Usually the answer to his death is sought in that very cup. They say that drinking the vessel of an ancient hero is like death. Forgetting that the cup had a volume of 0.27 liters - a little more than our faceted glass.
Another version: poison was added to the wine. But the king lived for almost two more weeks, he felt better several times, he even played dice and made plans to capture the Arabian Peninsula.
At the same time, few people remember the king’s medical education. Alexander, since he was told to watch his stomach, regularly took medicine based on white hellebore, which he prepared himself. In microdoses it is still used as a laxative. But the slightest overdose can lead to death. The symptoms are very similar to those that the king had - chills, fever, fever, abdominal pain. In addition, hellebore does not combine well with alcohol, especially in the post-stroke period. It is not surprising that Alexander suffered another blow from this combination - in the last hours before his death, he could not speak, barely moved, and then fell into a coma, from which he never recovered.
Alexander the Great feasts with hetaerae in captured Persepolis. Drawing by G. Simoni. Photo:
History shows that the great conqueror was well versed in medicine. Perhaps this was his undoing.
Could replace the doctor
Alexander the Great received a good education, and medicine was not the last subject there. “The king was interested not only in the abstract side of this science, but... came to the aid of his sick friends, prescribing various methods of treatment and treatment regimen,” Plutarch wrote about him in “Comparative Lives.”
Alexander enters Babylon. Lebrun, ok. 1664.
One can only guess how Alexander treated his comrades. However, he probably knew field surgery very well. Even an ordinary warrior of that time was an expert in stab and chopped wounds - let alone a commander. It can also be argued that the king was well versed in poisonous and medicinal herbs. During the Asian and Indian campaigns, he compiled a herbarium and sent the results to his teacher, philosopher and physician Aristotle.
Bust of Alexander the Great as Helios. Capitoline Museums (Rome)
Lame conqueror?
It is not known who and for what reasons first began to attribute illnesses to Macedonsky that he never suffered from. But stories about them are still passed on from mouth to mouth and have already begun to seem true to some. So, many are sure that Alexander was one-eyed, lame, and at the same time suffered from epilepsy. This is wrong. It was not Alexander who was one-eyed, but his father Philip. His son Hercules suffered from epilepsy. The lame one was the treasurer (and embezzler) Harpalus, one of the conqueror’s friends and associates.
But this does not mean that Alexander himself was absolutely healthy. He could declare himself as much as he liked as the son of the god Zeus, immortal and not susceptible to disease. In reality it was different.
The Macedonian court sculptor Lysippos depicted his king this way: his chin is raised, his face is turned to the right, his head is tilted back and to the left. Try to reproduce this pose - and you will immediately be accused of contempt for the human race... In his work, Lysippos adhered to the instructions of Aristotle, who said: “One should not go against nature, but represent the greatest of all living naturally.” So is the image real? At the time, Alexander may have suffered from Brown syndrome. This is a rare form of strabismus. If a person with such a disease tries to hold his head straight, objects will appear double. But turning the head like a sculpture can compensate for vision. So the point is not at all about the king’s contempt for “mortals,” but about illness. It can be congenital or acquired. In this case, it’s more likely the latter - in his youth the conqueror received a serious head injury, accompanied by partial loss of vision.
Alexander: Ask me whatever you want! Diogenes: Don't block the sun for me! (Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1818)
Different eyes
He had no luck with his eyes at all. Or luck, depending on how you look at it. One of his chroniclers, Arrian, mentioned: “One of his eyes was the color of the sky, the other the color of the night.” This is called heterochromia of the eye, that is, different colors. The thing is again rare, occurring in about 0.5% of people.
In the old days, the owner of such eyes was suspected of having connections with the other world. The priests of the peoples conquered by Alexander literally trembled at his gaze. Mystical fears were in vain. If anyone should have thought, it should have been Alexander himself. According to research by modern iridodiagnosticians (doctors who make diagnoses based on the iris), heterochromia indicates congenital weakness of the gastrointestinal tract. The doctors of antiquity also guessed something like this, since they advised the king to be as abstinent as possible in food.
Alexander cuts the Gordian knot. (Jean-Simon Berthelemy, late 18th-early 19th centuries)
Nine strokes
Alexander did not suffer from any other chronic diseases. According to the evidence, he required serious medical attention only nine times. Eight of them fit into the “occupational risks” of the conqueror of half the world. Here is how Plutarch lists them: “At Granicus, his helmet was cut with a sword, penetrating to the hair and bone of the skull. At Issus, the king was wounded in the thigh with a sword. Near Gaza he was wounded by a dart in the shoulder, and near Maracanda by an arrow in the shin so that the split bone protruded from the wound. In Hyrcania - a stone to the back of the head... In the area of the Assakans - an Indian spear to the ankle. In the region of the malls, an arrow two cubits long, piercing the shell, wounded him in the chest and lodged deep in the bones near the nipple. There they struck him in the neck with a mace.”
Once again the king found himself to blame. After a rapid march to the city of Tarsus, heated, he decided to swim in a mountain river. Coming out of the water, he “fell as if struck by lightning, lost the power of speech and spent about a day unconscious, barely showing signs of life.” Apparently it was a stroke.
The trust of Alexander the Great in the doctor Philip (art. G. Semiradsky, 1870)
Death at the bottom of the glass
The king was raised to his feet by the doctor Philip. With the help of what drug is not clear. It is only known that Philip and the other doctors categorically forbade the king from drinking alcoholic libations. But Alexander continued to indulge in wine. After the final victory over Darius, he drank continuously for 22 days. Then, in India, he even organized drinking games - who would outdrink whom. The winner was a certain Greek named Promachus, who drank about 4 khoi (about 13 liters) of wine. True, he and 40 other people died three days later.
The day before his death, Alexander drank about 8 liters of wine. The next day, in the midst of the feast, he drained the cup of Hercules and writhed with pain in his stomach.
Alexander meets the Indian king Porus, captured in the Battle of the Hydaspes River
Usually the answer to his death is sought in that very cup. They say that drinking the vessel of an ancient hero is like death. Forgetting that the cup had a volume of 0.27 liters - a little more than our faceted glass.
Another version: poison was added to the wine. But the king lived for almost two more weeks, he felt better several times, he even played dice and made plans to capture the Arabian Peninsula.
At the same time, few people remember the king’s medical education. Alexander, since he was told to watch his stomach, regularly took medicine based on white hellebore, which he prepared himself. In microdoses it is still used as a laxative. But the slightest overdose can lead to death. The symptoms are very similar to those that the king had - chills, fever, fever, abdominal pain. In addition, hellebore does not combine well with alcohol, especially in the post-stroke period. It is not surprising that Alexander suffered another blow from this combination - in the last hours before his death, he could not speak, barely moved, and then fell into a coma, from which he never recovered.
Alexander the Great feasts with hetaerae in captured Persepolis. Drawing by G. Simoni
The story of how one man with a small army conquered almost the entire known world. His soldiers saw him as a military genius; his enemies called him damned. He himself considered himself a god.
Noble origin
Alexander the Great was born in July 356 BC from the marriage of the Macedonian king Philip and one of his many queens, Olympias. But he could boast of more famous ancestors. According to dynastic legend, on his father’s side he was descended from Hercules, the son of Zeus, and on his mother’s side he was a direct descendant of the famous Achilles, the hero of Homer’s Iliad. The Olympics itself also became famous for being a constant participant in religious orgies in honor of Dionysus.
Plutarch wrote about her: “The Olympiad was more zealously committed to these sacraments than others and went on a rampage in a completely barbaric manner.” Sources tell us that during the processions she carried two tame snakes in her hands. The queen's excessive love for reptiles and the cold attitude between her and her husband gave rise to rumors that Alexander's real father was not the Macedonian king at all, but Zeus himself, who took the form of a snake.
City for Science
Alexander was seen as a talented child from childhood; he was prepared for the throne from an early age. Aristotle, who was close to the royal court, was appointed mentor to the future Macedonian king. To pay for his son’s education, Philip II restored the city of Stragira, where Aristotle was from, which he himself had destroyed, and returned there the citizens who had fled and were in slavery.
Invincible and vain
Since his first victory at age 18, Alexander the Great has never lost a battle. His military successes took him to Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, to Cyrenaica and India, to the territories of the Massagetae and Albania. He was the pharaoh of Egypt, king of Persia, Syria and Lydia. Alexander led his warriors, each of whom he knew by sight, with impressive speed, overtaking his enemies by surprise, even before the latter were ready for battle. The central place of Alexander's fighting force was occupied by the 15,000-strong Macedonian phalanx, whose warriors marched against the Persians with 5-meter peaks - sarissas. Throughout his military career, Alexander founded more than 70 cities, which he ordered to be named in his honor, and one in honor of his horse - Bucephalus, which exists to this day, however, under the name Jalalpur in Pakistan.
Become a god
Alexander's vanity was the flip side of his greatness. He dreamed of divine status. Having founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt in the Nile Delta, he went on a long journey to the oasis of Siwa in the desert, to the priests of the Egyptian supreme god Amun-Ra, who was likened to the Greek Zeus. According to the plan, the priests were supposed to recognize him as a descendant of God. History is silent about what the deity “told” him through the mouths of his servants, but supposedly it confirmed Alexander’s divine origin.
True, Plutarch subsequently gave the following curious interpretation of this episode: the Egyptian priest who received Alexander told him in Greek “paidion”, which means “child”. But as a result of bad pronunciation, it turned out to be “Pai Dios,” that is, “son of God.”
One way or another, Alexander was pleased with the answer. Having declared himself a god in Egypt with the “blessing” of a priest, he decided to become a god for the Greeks. In one of his letters to Aristotle, he asked the latter to argue to the Greeks and Macedonians for his divine essence: “dear teacher, now I ask you, my wise friend and mentor, to philosophically justify and convincingly motivate the Greeks and Macedonians to declare me god. By doing this, I am acting as a self-responsible politician and statesman.” However, his cult did not take root in Alexander’s homeland.
There was, of course, a political calculation behind Alexander’s manic desire to become a god for his subjects. Divine authority greatly simplified the management of his fragile empire, which was divided among sartraps (governors). But the personal factor also played an important role. In all the cities founded by Alexander, he was to be given honor on a par with the gods. In addition, his superhuman desire to conquer the whole world and unite Europe and Asia, which literally took possession of him in the last months of his life, suggests that he himself believed in the legend he created, considering himself more of a god than a man.
The mystery of Alexander's death
Death overtook Alexander in the midst of his grandiose plans. Despite his lifestyle, he did not die during the battle, but on his bed, preparing for another campaign, this time against Carthage. At the beginning of June 323 BC. e., the king suddenly developed a severe fever. On June 7, he could no longer speak, and three days later he died in the prime of his life, at the age of 32. The reason for Alexander’s sudden death still remains one of the most important mysteries of the ancient world.
The Persians, whom he mercilessly defeated, claimed that the commander was punished by heaven for desecrating the tomb of King Cyrus. The Macedonians who returned home said that the great commander died of drunkenness and debauchery (sources brought to us information about his 360 concubines). Roman historians believed that he was poisoned with some kind of slow-acting Asian poison. The main argument in favor of this version is considered to be the poor health of Alexander, who, returning from India, allegedly often fainted, lost his voice and suffered from muscle weakness and vomiting. In 2013, British scientists in the journal Clinical Toxicology put forward a version that Alexander was poisoned with a drug made from a poisonous plant - White cherry, used by Greek doctors to induce vomiting. The most common version says that Alexander suffered from malaria.
Looking for Alexander
It is still unknown where Alexander is buried. Immediately after his death, the division of his empire began between his closest associates. In order not to waste time on a lavish funeral, Alexander was temporarily buried in Babylon. Two years later it was dug up to transport the remains to Macedonia. But on the way, the funeral cortege was attacked by Alexander’s half-brother, Ptolemy, who took the “trophy” by force and bribery and transported it to Memphis, where he buried it near one of the temples of Amun. But apparently Alexander was not destined to find peace.
Two years later, the new tomb was opened and transported with all appropriate honors to Alexandria. There the body was re-embalmed, placed in a new sarcophagus and installed in a mausoleum in the central square.
The next time Alexander's sleep was apparently disturbed by the first Christians, for whom he was the “king of the pagans.” Some historians believe that the sarcophagus was stolen and buried somewhere on the outskirts of the city. Then the Arabs poured into Egypt and erected a mosque on the site of the mausoleum. At this point, traces of the burial are completely lost; Muslims did not allow anyone into Alexandria for many centuries.
Today there are many versions about the tomb of Alexander the Great. A Persian legend from the beginning of the century says that Alexander remained in the lands of Babylon; The Macedonian claims that the body was taken to the ancient capital of Aegean, where Alexander was born. In the 20th century, archaeologists were “close” countless times to solving the mystery of Alexander’s final refuge - they looked for him in the dungeons of Alexandria, in the oasis of Sivi, in the ancient city of Amphipolis, but so far everything was in vain. However, scientists are not giving up. In the end, the game is worth the candle - according to one version, he was buried in a sarcophagus made of pure gold, along with numerous trophies from Asia and manuscripts from the legendary Library of Alexandria.
Alexander the Great was one of the greatest generals in history. As a young man (under the age of 32), he conquered vast territories from Greece to the Indian subcontinent. But fate did not give him time to enjoy his unprecedented achievements. In 323 BC. In the midst of drawing up plans for the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula, Alexander died suddenly in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon. In the 2300 years that have passed since the death of the brilliant conqueror, its cause has never been established.
Now New Zealand researcher Dr Catherine Hall from the University of Otago has proposed a new explanation for Alexander's death, which she says is based on the symptoms he exhibited in his final days, as well as some post-mortem evidence. According to Hall, the king died from an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. It is called Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS). An article presenting Hall's account was published last week in the Ancient History Bulletin.
Until now, they have tried to explain the unexpected death of Alexander the Great by infections and alcoholism. The version that the great commander was deliberately poisoned is also widespread. At various times in history, those who studied this topic said, among other things, that Alexander died of malaria, of typhus, and of West Nile fever.
According to Dr. Hall, all theories cannot convincingly explain the details of the tragedy given in the works of ancient historians. One of the details is that there were no signs of decomposition on Alexander’s body even six days after death. “The ancient Greeks considered this proof that Alexander was a god. This is the first time we have offered a scientific and credible explanation,” Hall wrote.
As ancient historians reported, Macedonsky had a high fever, abdominal pain and progressive ascending paralysis in the last days of his life. Nevertheless, the king remained conscious almost until his death. Hall is convinced that Makedonskiy suffered from Guillain–Barré syndrome, which developed after exposure to Helicobacter pylori infection, a common known cause of neurological disease at the time.
According to Hall, when speculating about the possible causes of Alexander's death, historians and doctors focused on high fever and abdominal pain. Meanwhile, due attention was not paid to the fact that the king’s mental state remained stable. This symptom fits into the diagnosis of acute motor axonal neuropathy, which causes paralysis but does not affect cognitive function. At the same time, Hall recalls, in ancient times the determination of death was based on the presence or absence of breathing, but not a pulse. If we assume that Alexander rapidly developed ascending paralysis and at the same time the need for oxygen decreased, we can assume that the king’s breathing became almost imperceptible. His pupils dilated and stopped responding to light. Hence the researcher’s conclusion: Alexander was considered to have died prematurely.
Everything points to a high probability of the following: for six days there were no signs of decomposition on Alexander’s body because, in fact, he had not yet died. The hero’s belonging to the host of gods has nothing to do with it.
By publishing this article, Dr. Hall joins a rapidly expanding field of medical research that is using modern scientific knowledge to solve ancient mysterious deaths. “My goal is to initiate a debate and perhaps rewrite the history books because I believe that the real death of Alexander the Great occurred six days later than previously thought. This is probably the most famous case of misdiagnosed death in history,” Hall said.
