Alexander the Great was born in the fall of 356 BC. e. in the capital of Ancient Macedonia - the city of Pella. From childhood, Macedonsky’s biography included training in politics, diplomacy, and military skills. He studied with the best minds of that time - Lysimachus, Aristotle. He was interested in philosophy and literature, and was not interested in physical joys. Already at the age of 16, he tried on the role of a king, and later - a commander.

Rise to power

After the assassination of the king of Macedon in 336 BC. e. Alexander was proclaimed ruler. Macedonsky's first actions in such a high government position were the abolition of taxes, reprisals against his father's enemies, and confirmation of the union with Greece. After suppressing the uprising in Greece, Alexander the Great began to contemplate war with Persia.

Then, if we consider short biography Alexander the Great, followed by military operations in alliance with the Greeks and Franks against the Persians. In the battle near Troy, many settlements opened their gates to the great commander. Soon almost all Asia Minor, and then Egypt. There Macedonian founded Alexandria.

King of Asia

In 331 BC. e. The next most important battle with the Persians took place at Gaugamela, during which the Persians were defeated. Alexander conquered Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis.

In 329 BC. BC, when King Darius was killed, Alexander became the ruler of the Persian Empire. Having become the king of Asia, he was subjected to repeated conspiracies. In 329-327 BC. e. fought in Central Asia - Sogdean, Bactria. In those years, Alexander defeated the Scythians, married the Bactrian princess Roxana and set off on a campaign to India.

The commander returned home only in the summer of 325 BC. The period of wars ended, the king took up the management of the conquered lands. He carried out several reforms, mainly military.

Death

From February 323 BC. e. Alexander stopped in Babylon and began planning new military campaigns against the Arab tribes, and then on Carthage. He gathered troops, prepared a fleet and built canals.

But a few days before the campaign, Alexander fell ill, and on June 10, 323 BC. e. died in Babylon from a strong fever.

Historians have still not established the exact cause of the death of the great commander. Some consider his death to be natural, others put forward theories about malaria or cancer, and still others about poisoning with a poisonous medicine.

After Alexander's death great empire collapsed, wars for power began among its generals (diadochi).

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 sick friends, appointing various ways treatment and therapeutic 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 healing 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 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 arranged drinking games- who will 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 medical education king 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

Between the Euphrates and the “Marduk Road” in Babylon, archaeologists led by Robert Koldewey excavated the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II. It was in this palace that Alexander the Great stayed after his campaign to the east. The inhabitants of Babylon around 321 BC. e. he was greeted very cordially and great commander housed with extraordinary splendor. The palace in which he lived was a unique architectural structure.

The total area of ​​the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II was 4.5 hectares. It was surrounded by walls with a total length of more than 900 meters. These walls made the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II real defensive structure. Scientists have excavated five defensive complexes, each of which, if necessary, could be isolated from the others - the fortified gates were locked, and each courtyard turned into a powerful defensive line. Five courtyards served as a kind of centers around which various rooms were grouped. You could get into the palace from the main street of the city, where the only external entrance to it was located. The first courtyard was occupied by the guards who guarded the palace. The second courtyard housed the residence of the chief of the palace and other important officials and courtiers.

The third courtyard is the largest. It was used for various state ceremonies. Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a huge throne room. It was richly decorated with multi-colored tiles with floral patterns and served for receptions of ambassadors and other official events.

The king’s personal chambers overlooked the fourth courtyard, and around the fifth courtyard was a complex of rooms occupied by the queen and the harem of Nebuchadnezzar II. In total, there were 172 rooms in the palace complex.

A pier was equipped on the embankment of the Euphrates, adjacent to the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II; In addition, they built a staircase that descended directly to the water.

It is clear that in such a fortified palace, Alexander the Great could feel completely safe and calm. He planned to make Babylon with its beautiful palace his eastern capital, but his ambitious plans were never realized. After one of the feasts, he fell ill and died at the age of 32, after only 8 years of his reign as a world power at the time. This happened on June 13, 323 BC. e.

This shows that neither power, nor money, nor position in society can guarantee a person security and many years of prosperity. Alexander the Great left a bright mark on the history of mankind, but his life itself was so short that it causes sadness and regret.

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:

Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC), also known as Alexander the Great, died in Babylon at the age of 32, just over a month short of his 33rd birthday and leaving no instructions on his heirs.
Regarding the death of this commander and ruler of the state, there are the following points of view:
1. Version about the natural death of the Macedonian king.
2. Assassination of Alexander the Great.
Among supporters of the first point of view, the version most often put forward is about the death of Alexander the Great from malaria. Others suggest that the Macedonian king could have died from West Nile fever. There is also an assumption that Alexander could have died from cancer. Some experts believe that the great commander died of leishmaniasis. Some experts are inclined to think that the cause of the death of the Macedonian king is smallpox.
American historian, specialist in Ancient Macedonia, Eugene Borza (1935), took part in the work of the medical investigative commission of the University of Maryland, which concluded that the cause of Alexander’s death was typhoid fever.
Some experts believe that Alexander died not from one disease, but from two, possibly more, diseases. For example, some historians, orientalists and other categories of specialists claim that Alexander the Great died of malaria and pneumonia. It is possible that the second disease could be leukemia.
Among supporters of the first point of view, there is an assertion that Alexander’s frequent drinking sessions with generals, friends and other categories of people could undermine his health.
There is also a version that Alexander the Great overdosed on poisonous hellebore, which was used as a laxative.
It turns out that supporters of the first point of view still cannot establish and come to an agreement because of what disease Alexander the Great died.
An interesting fact is that none of his entourage, his loved ones, or his dining companions got sick. It is on this basis that some supporters of the second point of view believe that Alexander could not have died from infectious diseases. To a certain extent, there is some truth in their words. It is strange that only Alexander alone contracted an infection somewhere, while the people around him were spared the infection.
There is a hypothesis that Alexander died due to the death of his close friend Hephaestion, who died a few months earlier. This version is not very popular.
Most supporters of the second point of view argue that Alexander was deliberately poisoned.
A popular version among historians and other specialists is the poisoning of Alexander the Great by Antipater (397 - 319 BC), governor of Macedonia. The question arises - why did Antipater kill Alexander? Some believe that Antipater, having learned that Alexander the Great was going to remove him from his post as governor of Macedonia, began to take measures to prevent this from happening. These measures led to him poisoning Alexander. If this is so, then it turns out that Antipater kills a person for the sake of fasting. It is possible, according to supporters of this version, that Antipater wanted not only to poison the Macedonian and retain the post of governor of Macedonia, but also wanted to take Alexander’s place, transferring the post of governor to his heir. Whether this is true or not has not been proven.
There is also a version according to which Antipater and his eldest son Cassander together took part in the murder of Alexander the Great.
There is an assumption that the murderer of Alexander the Great is his teacher Aristotle. According to sources, Aristotle was very fond of money. If this is so, then it is possible that he was bribed by Carthage, since the government of this state was aware of the impending campaign of Alexander the Great against Carthage. By destroying Alexander, Carthage would protect itself from Macedonian conquest.
There is information that Aristotle had great connections. If this is so, then he could well find a person or people who, for a certain reward, would or would agree to kill the Macedonian king.
If the murder of Alexander is connected with Carthage, then it is possible that Carthage was searching for the future murderer. It is possible that the choice of the future murderer fell on Aristotle. But it is possible that Aristotle could have refused to kill his student. It is clear that in case of refusal, Carthage will look for another future killer. It is possible that another future killer was found by Carthage. In this case, the killer of the Macedonian king is not Aristotle, but someone else. There is a version that Aristotle refused to kill his student, but named Carthage for a certain reward one or more people who could kill Alexander.
It can also be assumed that the killer of Alexander the Great is not Carthage, but one of the rulers of the Arabian states.
British experts believe that Alexander was poisoned with a drug made from white hellebore. It is known that this poisonous plant used by ancient Greek doctors for medical purposes.
If we assume that Alexander the Great was poisoned, then two options are possible: intentional poisoning and poisoning through negligence. If there was a deliberate poisoning, then the question arises - who poisoned Alexander? Who prepared the drink that contained poison? It is possible that Alexander’s killers were not one person, but several.
Poisoning through negligence occurs if the drink with poison was intended not for Alexander, but for another person, but it so happened that the Macedonian king was poisoned. Anything can happen in life, so the possibility of poisoning due to negligence also cannot be ruled out.
Among some historians and other experts, there is an assumption that the poisoner of the Macedonian king is one of Alexander’s generals, namely Ptolemy. It is possible that Ptolemy and Antipater acted together. It is possible that Aristotle and Ptolemy acted together.
Some experts believe that Alexander's killer is his wife Roxana, who was furious over the Macedonian king's two subsequent marriages to Persian princesses. According to some sources, Alexander blamed Roxana for the death of Hephaestion. We must not forget that Roxanne was pregnant. It is unlikely that Roxana, having killed Alexander, wanted to leave the child without a father. It is difficult to believe that Ptolemy or Roxana, two people considered loyal to Alexander and dependent on him, could want the death of the Macedonian king, but such a possibility is not excluded.
There is a version of a criminal conspiracy among Alexander’s Greek-Macedonian entourage to poison him. It is known that among the Greco-Macedonian nobility there were dissatisfied with the policies of Alexander the Great. According to sources, Alexander became alienated from some Greeks and Macedonians. The Greco-Macedonian environment was dissatisfied with Alexander's rapprochement with the Persian nobility.
There is also a version that the Greek-Macedonian encirclement or some part of it was tired of fighting and was against military campaigns against Arabia or Carthage. In this case the option criminal conspiracy not excluded.
The possibility of a criminal conspiracy is not excluded in another case related to the military campaign against Carthage and Arabia. It is known that Alexander did not give his soldiers much time to rest, as he was eager to quickly conquer Carthage, Arabia and other lands. Supporters of this version believe that the Greek-Macedonian environment was not against military campaigns against Carthage and Arabia, but believed that the army should rest longer and gain more strength.
If we assume that Alexander the Great was killed, then the question arises - who is the killer or killers? Alexander could have been killed by envious people, secret enemies, Antipater, and the Persians. There are many options, but there is no answer yet. It is possible that Alexander died of natural causes. In this case, there is no point in looking for the killer, since he does not exist.