
The Death of Alexander the Great: One of History's Great Unsolved Mysteries - HNLurker2
https://lithub.com/the-death-of-alexander-the-great-one-of-historys-great-unsolved-mysteries/
======
dustfinger
I found [1] "The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind"
to be an incredible source of inspiration. Oh, what it must have been like to
be privately tutored by Aristotle.

What surprised me the most about the article is the fact that it doesn't
mention his best friend and most trusted companion -- Ptolemy. It was Ptolemy
that would oversee the founding of the Great city of Alexandria. It was
Ptolemy that would rewrite the history of the Pharos (or was it Ptolemy II?)
and begin the Ptolemaic dynasty that lasted 275 years. Well done Ptolemy.

By the way, both Ptolemy and Alexander were privately tutored by Aristotle.
Well, Alexander definitely was, but maybe Ptolemy was just taught at the
school of Aristotle [2]. Either way, they were both incredibly educated, which
was my main source of inspiration. How I long for the intellectual mastery
that they are said to have achieved so early in life.

[1]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400064.The_Rise_and_Fall...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400064.The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Alexandria)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great#Educatio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great#Education)

~~~
dgjrhgi
In a campaign at Sangala in Punjab, the Indian attack was so ferocious it
completely destroyed the Greek cavalry, forcing Alexander to attack on foot.
In the next battle, against the Malavs of Multan, he was felled by an Indian
warrior whose arrow pierced the Macedonian’s breastplate and ribs.

Says Military History magazine: “Although there was more fighting, Alexander’s
wound put an end to any more personal exploits. Lung tissue never fully
recovers, and the thick scarring in its place made every breath cut like a
knife.”

------
conscion
It always puzzles me why sudden deaths in antiquity are always thought of as
suspicious. During a time with very little medical knowledge, sudden illness
followed by death was probably very common.

Just from the short description in the article, something as simple as his
appendix bursting would have resulted in similar symptoms. Sudden pain
followed by a systemic infection (fever).

~~~
palisade
At least in Alexander the Great's case he was the epitome of youth, health and
virility. Considered an unstoppable force and then he dies quite suddenly. It
was odd.

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dpark
> _Wine was a little syrupy and could have a high alcohol content compared
> with vintages today._

This is tangential but is there any evidence for this claim? It’s my
understanding that yeast simply will not grow beyond about 14-15% alcohol, no
matter how much sugar you feed them, and this is what puts a cap on the
alcohol content of “current vintages”.

I’ve always heard that older wines (and other fermentables) were lower alcohol
and that even 14% is only feasible due to modern yeast strains.

~~~
bumby
I believe part of the problem is that there were many variants that were all
translated to the same English word "wine", at least from Biblical history.
[0] My understanding was that these could have an equally varying range in
alcohol content even though they all received the same translation.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_the_Bible#Hebrew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_the_Bible#Hebrew)

~~~
dpark
But if you can’t ferment past 15% at the absolute most and you cannot distill,
then there might have been different alcohol levels in different “wines”, but
none would actually be significantly (if at all) stronger than typical modern
wines.

------
breakingwalls
According to wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_campaign_of_Alexander_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_campaign_of_Alexander_the_Great)

"Alexander's march east put him in confrontation with the Nanda Empire of
Magadha and the Gangaridai of Bengal. According to the Greek sources, the
Nanda army was supposedly five times larger than the Macedonian army.[5] His
army, exhausted, homesick, and anxious by the prospects of having to further
face large Indian armies throughout the Indo-Gangetic Plain, mutinied at the
Hyphasis (modern Beas River) and refused to march further east. Alexander,
after a meeting with his officer, Coenus, and after hearing about the lament
of his soldiers,[6] eventually relented,[7] being convinced that it was better
to return. This caused Alexander to turn south, advancing through southern
Punjab and Sindh, along the way conquering more tribes along the lower Indus
River, before finally turning westward.[8]

Alexander died in Babylon on 10 or 11 June 323 BC. In c. 322 BC, one year
after Alexander's death, Chandragupta Maurya of Magadha founded the Maurya
Empire in India. "

~~~
dgjrhgi
There are large number of other texts/journals that tells his story
differently. He was defeated so badly at the entrance of Indian peninsula that
he had retreat and finally succumbed to his injuries.

~~~
Robotbeat
Doubtless yours is a text from the Indian perspective while the parent's
narrative is from the Greek/Macedonian/Western perspective. I don't have
standing to say which is more or less likely, but both are probably engaged in
some amount of motivated reasoning or selective memory (hence the continuing
mystery of Alexander's death).

~~~
Koshkin
One has to realize that historical recordings have rarely, if ever, been
impartial. If you have two opposing accounts, the truth, with some
probability, is somewhere in between. We will never know for sure though.

------
sb057
Only tangentially related, but I find that there is a massive under-
appreciation of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom[1] which was left in the wake of
Alexander's eastern conquest. Some of the artifacts[2] that they managed to
produce in the 2nd century BC in what is now Afghanistan is truly remarkable.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-
Bactrian_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monnaie_de_Bactriane,_Euc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monnaie_de_Bactriane,_Eucratide_I,_2_faces.jpg)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Alexander's biggest achievement was to go down in history as a man who brought
the light of civilisation to the barbarians in the lands he conquered. He was
the original enlightened conqueror.

We remember him today as a great hero partly for his amazing prowess in battle
[1] but mostly because he spent time cultivating his own image. He was clearly
interested in posterity, and he didn't want to be remembered as just another
guy who killed people and took their stuff. He surrounded himself with men of
letters and knowledge and of course he had his personal hiostorians, a habit
that I'm guessing he helped establish among the world's kings and warlords.

Anyway, all that he did, worked- and he's remembered not as a butcher who
drowned entire provinces in their blood, but as a liberator from the blunt
tyranny of the barbaric Persian dynasty, as a son of Ammon who saved Egypt and
gave the ancient kingdom new life, as the man who cut the Gordian knot with
his brains as much as with his sword. Many since have conquered, but noone
else brought so much war in his wake and gained such praise for the act -not
until Napoleon.

He was mental [2] but he was a smart guy.

_____________

[1] Seriously, Iron Man had nothing on this guy who led from the front and
routinely charged ahead of his army scaling enemy walls and having to be
rescued when he found himself in the thick of it with just his bodyguard to
protect him.

[2] Killed the man who saved his life in battle in a fit of drunken rage
during a party.

~~~
kasey_junk
For at least the last 40 years no serious historical text or scholar treats
Alexander just as a great man.

If anything modern historians dramatically index towards “narcissistic
butcher”.

I suppose it’s impressive that the Roman reverence for the guy still plays but
lots and lots of people view him as a brutal tyrannical conquerer and always
have.

~~~
loki49152
How much of that is due to a critical evaluation of his behavior and how much
is due to the "modern" tendency toward foul hatred of anyone who accomplishes
anything?

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chrismaeda
When I read Arrian, I remember thinking that if I was one of Alexander's
generals I probably would have killed him. After 10 years of war you might
want to kick back and enjoy being an Emperor. But apparently all Alexander
thought about was what to conquer next.

~~~
jbattle
And kept them SO FAR away from their families with no apparent intention of
ever returning. I wonder if some of his generals were able to get 'leave' and
go back to Macedonia, though I imagine the trip back must have been quite
hazardous as Hellenization was just getting started.

Also he apparently forced a lot of his officers to marry Persians in an effort
to join the two cultures. I think that caused a lot of hard feelings.

~~~
chrismaeda
Arrian mentions that veterans were regularly allowed to return home to
Macedonia, presumably for good. But no mention of the generals being allowed
to leave. His generals were arguably the main beneficiaries of his death. Eg
Ptolemy founded an Egyptian dynasty that lasted until the Romans; Cleopatra
was his descendant.

------
cafard
Might I recommend Peter Green's biography of Alexander the Great. Green's
_Alexander to Actium_ also covers the "funeral games" that Alexander predicted
his generals would hold, and goes on to cover the Hellenistic age in some
detail.

~~~
dustfinger
Thank you, I will consider adding it to my queue.

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arzt
A recent study was published suggesting he died of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an
auto-immune disease, which would have paralyzed him and would have explained
his inability to move or speak. Interestingly, his body did not begin
decomposing until 6 days after his death.

[https://ancienthistorybulletin.org/downloads/katherine-
hall-...](https://ancienthistorybulletin.org/downloads/katherine-hall-did-
alexander-the-great-die-from-guillain-barre-syndrome-106-128)

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190122115006.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190122115006.htm)

------
Koshkin
Even though the post is just a book advertisement, the topic of trying to
unravel ancient mysteries is an interesting one. If one got serious about
investigating the cause of Alexander's death or some other seemingly cold case
like this, how would they go about doing it given all the forensic instruments
that we have today - perhaps even including the techniques of big data
analysis and machine learning (not sure about the 'big data' part).

~~~
boomboomsubban
>how would they go about doing it given all the forensic instruments that we
have today

It can't be done. For it to even be conceivable a decently preserved corpse
would be necessary, and even then we would have no surefire way to confirm
that it is him. If miraculously we managed those feats, many causes of death
would still be hard to prove.

Our best hope would be finding some copy of a currently lost text that
provides more details, and even then it would be hard to tell what is true and
what was propaganda from the Wars of tge Diadochi.

------
shartshooter
For anyone interested in some historical fiction about Alexander the Great’s
conquests is absolutely recommend The Virtues Of War by Steven Pressfield.

Pressfields books are some f my favorite: as historically accurate as possible
with a great story to keep you engaged. Gates of Fire, by him, would be
another recommended period piece.

------
dr_dshiv
Amazing that Greece and India were essentially neighbors for some 250 years.
The indo-Greek king Menander became Buddhist before it was adopted by Ashoka.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menander_I](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menander_I)

------
davidw
I heard they found the remains of his chariot on a small island on the
pacific...

~~~
mactyler
lol

------
dr_dshiv
Since his body didn't decompose for a week, maybe that's because he faked his
death? Dun dun dunnnn!

And, where is his tomb?

~~~
dr_dshiv
Recent efforts to find the tomb:
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/02/lost-
tomb...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/02/lost-tomb-
alexander-great/)

------
the_reformation
I'm going to posit that 92% of what we think we know about Alexander the Great
is wrong, not just his death.

~~~
nkozyra
Based on what, though? There are historical figures whose lives are greatly
documented and cross documented by others from disparate places.

We know a great deal about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle this way, why not
Alexander?

~~~
goto11
Because of the lack of contemporary sources. We know a lot about Plato and
Aristotle because their writings are preserved. For Socrates we have several
independent contemporary accounts.

This is just not the case for Alexander. The sources we have are hundreds of
years removed. Presumably they are are based on now-lost contemporary
accounts, but who knows how much is embellishments.

------
notus
It seems a little irrelevant as to how he died exactly IMO. We already know
there were people who wanted to kill him. What I'm more curious about is why
Oliver Stone thought that an overly effeminate Alexander was the best
depiction of him.

~~~
nathanvanfleet
Different cultures throughout time saw what being a "man" and what being a
"woman" differently that 2019 America.

~~~
notus
He wasn't actually that way though. They mistook notions of brotherly love
which are not homosexual to something homosexual. There are no ancient sources
that even allude to that. Just modern scholars projecting their own fantasies
as usual.

~~~
d1zzy
Or simply that maybe there wasn't such a big distinction between being very
close to a same-sex friend without any sexual relationship and being close and
experimenting/enjoying each other bodies whenever people partied/had some good
time. That is, if people back then didn't really see anything wrong with
beautiful/healthy (same sex or not) friends enjoying what their bodies had to
offer then the strong distinction that we draw today between those 2 cases was
much more blurry back then and not something to be talking about much.

Do you have any evidence to the contrary or are you just saying that it's
equally possible either was happening?

Even if there's strong support to say Alexander never pursued any homosexual
relationships there's such a thing as artistic license and historically based
movies are riddled with inaccuracies for whatever reason, and that's perfectly
fine, they aren't advertising themselves as documentaries.

~~~
EpicEng
>Do you have any evidence to the contrary or are you just saying that it's
equally possible either was happening?

Are you really asking for evidence which contradicts a hypothetical that you
have no evidence to support?

~~~
d1zzy
I'm asking for evidence either way. Is there a reason to believe one side
needs more evidence than the other?

