Death of Alexander the Great
Alexander died at Babylon on 10 or 11 June 323 BC after eleven days of fever, aged thirty-two. He had come back from India the previous year, having been turned round at the Hyphasis by an army that refused to go further, and having lost a large part of it crossing the Gedrosian desert on the way home. The last months were spent on plans of enormous scope — a circumnavigation of Arabia, a fleet for the Caspian, a road along the North African coast — and on grief, since Hephaestion had died at Ecbatana in the autumn and the mourning was extravagant even by his standards. The fever began after a long night of drinking with Medius of Larissa. The royal diaries record the progression: bathing, sacrificing, being carried out to see the army, and finally being unable to speak while the soldiers filed past his bed. Malaria, typhoid, pancreatitis and poison have all been argued for, and the poison theory appears in the sources within a decade. The empire had no arrangements. His wife Roxana was pregnant, his half-brother was mentally incapable, and the generals divided the satrapies within days. Asked who should have it, he is reported to have said to the strongest, and to have predicted that they would hold great funeral games over him. The body was hijacked on the way to Macedonia by Ptolemy and taken to Egypt, where it was displayed for six centuries and then lost. The most persuasive modern reconstruction is a fever combined with the physical damage of thirteen years of campaigning, including a lung wound in India that had nearly killed him. He had been wounded at least eight times and had drunk heavily for years.
- Year: 323 BCE
- Category: Political
