Alexander the Great

BBC-On-Line reports that on this day in 323BC Alexander the Great died 'sparking 42 years of war for his succession'. What killed Alexander, who was only 32 at the time of his death, is, as the BBC website says, a great mystery. What is known is that he fell ill during a drinking party. That illness turned into the fever which led to his death. Alexander was in Babylon at the time and had recently passed through a swamp outside the city. It is possible, therefore, that he could have died of malaria or typhoid fever.

However, when you look at the fact that his great friend Hephaistion had died only months earlier in equally similar and mysterious circumstances, you inevitably wonder whether someone or some people were acting to end the reign of Alexander and his allies. "Cui bono?" Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla asked (and who Cicero quoted). Unfortunately, asking that question does not take us much closer to the truth as there were many people who benefitted from Alexander's demise. Could it have been Antipater, whose reign as regent of Macedonia was under threat following Alexander's return from the East? Or Cassander, Antipater's friend. Perhaps one of Alexander's 12 Marshals did the deed, fed up with his orientising. Even Aristotle, once Alexander's tutor, has been named a suspect. We will never know the truth so today we simply mourn the passing of one of the greatest generals, if not the greatest, of the West.