What Killed Alexander the Great?

Alexander the Great’s is one of the most fascinating military minds in history. A man with an insatiable ego, he, encouraged by his mother, believed himself to be the son of Zeus himself! His mother, who was involved in a bizarre snake cult, encouraged him to fulfill his greatness.

At 32-years-old, Alexander had conquered some of the mightiest empires on earth. He’d conquered the Persians and the Egyptians, and his army was led as far away as India. He built many, many cities (almost all of which were named Alexandria), and his efforts culminated in an empire that stretched from the Balkans to Pakistan.

And then he died, no appointed heir, and his empire crumbled, for on the brink of another invasion, he felt incredibly ill. He suffered excruciating pain for 12 days until he died.

The ordeal began in June of 323 BC when, as he was feasting at a commander’s house, he developed a fever and abdominal pain. Apparently, this pain came on as he was drinking a large goblet of wine. For three days, he bathed, sacrificed, and, naturally, slept. Unfortunately, on the fourth day, the fever grew worse. By day four, he was losing strength, and by the seventh, he could no longer leave his bed. Unable to even speak, when his troops asked to see him ten days into his illness, he could do nothing but follow them with his eyes. He died just two days after their visit.

For six days he lay, the embalmers having been delayed, and they were shocked when they arrived that he hadn’t decomposed at all. The summer was allegedly quite hot, and there should have been changes in the body during that time, lending credence, as far as Greece was concerned, that he truly was the son of Zeus.

What Killed Him?

Much like when I covered Edgar Allen Poe earlier, there are many, many theories about how Alexander died. It also doesn’t help that he died so long ago, it’s difficult to tell how much of the tale is true and what was embellished. We are, after all, talking about a man who claimed to be the son of a god!

Complicating things further, there aren’t any contemporary accounts of his death. The accounts we have were written long after, the oral history of this great conqueror’s demise already having been passed along for many, many years. Oral traditions aren’t known to be well-preserved accounts to begin with, with each teller minimizing the bits they don’t care for and expounding upon details they think are important, often added in a flair of their own whether it was originally part of the story or not!

For example, Plutarch, writing in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, claimed that Alexander actually didn’t have any pain – that such details were thrown in by people who wanted to give him a more dramatic ending than what originally occurred. Yet many other writers insist that Alexander was in incredible pain! This led many ancient historians to conclude that Alexander had been poisoned, as he was allegedly drinking wine when the pains hit.

So, let’s check out all of the theories people have come up with.

Poisoning

We may as well start here, as so many people in the ancient world felt that this is what caused his sudden collapse. The evidence is simple: he was feasting and drinking when his abdomen was seized by severe pains.

It should also be obvious that Alexander had many enemies by this point in life, as well. Even Aristotle was a suspect at one point, a relative having been embroiled in an assassination plot! An ambitious general may have done away with the conqueror.

He’d also managed to offend many with his ego and insistence that he was a child of the gods, and, let’s face it, most of us would have grown tired of hearing about it, too. And if we were dragged from one military campaign to the next with hardly a break, we’d be pretty aggravated as well. Oh, and he also managed to offend his fellow Macedonians by dressing like the Persians, whom he’d conquered.

By this point in time, the megalomaniac Alexander was a brilliant military strategists (armies still study him to this day), charismatic leader (he conquered Egypt without even using his military), and a thoroughly hated human because he seemed to have narcissistic tendencies. Murder would definitely be something worth looking at.

As for what kind of poison was used, arsenic has been suggested due to the stomach pains he supposedly endured. It also causes progressive weakness, which Alexander definitely experienced, and isn’t quite as sudden as Arsenic and Old Lace would have you believe. Water-soluble and practically tasteless, this is a tantalizing theory.

GBS Caused by Typhoid Fever

A variety of tropical illnesses have been suggested, from malaria, which doesn’t cause loss of speech, to the West Nile virus, which usually isn’t fatal. The one that sticks most often is typhoid fever that leads to Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

As part of his weakness, Alexander is described as having progressive, ascending paralysis – a hallmark of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. The typhoid fever would have caused the intense fever and abdominal pains, but GBS developed after a few days and eventually killed him.

GBS is an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the healthy cells in the nervous system. The result is paralysis that starts in the legs and rises to the brain. Alexander was in complete control of his mental faculties until just before death, hence why this is such a strong theory. In fact, the reason his body hadn’t decomposed in the six days it took for the embalmers to get to him may be because he was still alive, trapped in his own body!

GBS can occur on its own, but without the underlying condition of typhoid fever, it’s not always fatal.

What Do You Think?

What killed Alexander the Great?