Death of Alexander the Great (323 BC): Babylon and the Succession

The death of Alexander the Great in Babylon on 10 or 11 June 323 BC ended the life of the most famous conqueror of the ancient world at the age of 32. After a short, feverish illness, he died without an adult heir, leaving an empire that stretched from Greece to the borders of India. His death set off decades of war among his generals and remains one of history’s most debated medical mysteries.

Background: Alexander’s last year

By 324 BC Alexander the Great had returned from India, after a disastrous march through the Gedrosian desert in 325 BC. He spent the following months reorganising his empire, punishing governors who had abused their power and pursuing his policy of joining Macedonians and Persians, most strikingly in the mass weddings at Susa in 324 BC.

In autumn 324 BC his closest friend, Hephaestion, died of a fever at Ecbatana. Alexander’s grief was extreme, and he ordered a vast funeral pyre and honours across the empire. That winter he campaigned against the Cossaeans in the Zagros Mountains.

In spring 323 BC he entered Babylon, which he seems to have intended as a capital. Ancient writers say Babylonian priests, the Chaldeans, warned him that entering the city would be dangerous for him. He received embassies from across the Mediterranean world and was preparing a major expedition to Arabia, with a fleet being built and a harbour dug at Babylon.

The final illness

The fullest account of Alexander’s last days comes from the so-called Royal Diaries, or Ephemerides, which Arrian and Plutarch quote. Their authenticity is debated, but they give a consistent outline.

At the end of May or start of June 323 BC, after a banquet, Alexander went on to a drinking party at the house of his friend Medius of Larissa. The next day he developed a fever. For several days he continued to bathe, offer the daily sacrifices and give orders to his officers about the Arabian expedition, while the fever steadily worsened.

He was moved across the Euphrates to a park and then back to the palace. Eventually he could no longer speak. His soldiers, fearing he was already dead, demanded to see him and filed past his bed one by one; he could only greet them by raising his head or moving his eyes. He died in the evening after an illness of about ten to twelve days.

The date is confirmed by a contemporary Babylonian clay tablet. One of the Babylonian astronomical diaries, which recorded celestial and political events, notes simply that on the 29th day of the month Aiaru “the king died”. This corresponds to 10 or 11 June 323 BC.

How did Alexander die?

The cause of death has never been settled. Ancient and modern explanations fall into two broad groups.

Poisoning

Within a few years of his death, rumours spread that Alexander had been poisoned. The main suspects were Antipater, the regent of Macedonia, who had just been summoned to Babylon and feared for his position, and his sons Cassander and Iollas, the latter being Alexander’s cupbearer. Some stories even claimed that Aristotle had supplied the poison.

Plutarch says the rumour only gained ground about six years later, when Alexander’s mother Olympias used it to justify killing members of Antipater’s family. Both Arrian and Plutarch record the poison stories but do not believe them. The slow course of the illness also fits poorly with most poisons known in antiquity, although some modern writers have suggested plant poisons such as white hellebore (Veratrum album).

Natural causes

Most modern historians favour a natural illness, worsened by years of wounds, exhaustion and heavy drinking. Suggestions include:

• Malaria, common in the marshy lands around Babylon, perhaps the most frequently proposed explanation.
• Typhoid fever, put forward in a 1998 medical study that compared the symptoms to the ancient descriptions.
• West Nile virus, suggested in 2003 because of a story of ravens dying at Babylon before Alexander’s death.
• Acute pancreatitis or other effects of alcohol on an already weakened body.
• Guillain-Barré syndrome, a nerve disorder causing paralysis, proposed in 2018 to explain reports that his body did not decay for days.

None of these can be proven. The surviving accounts were written centuries later, and their details are too uncertain for a reliable diagnosis.

The succession crisis

Alexander had no adult heir. His wife Roxana, a Bactrian noblewoman, was pregnant. He also had a half-brother, Arrhidaeus, a son of Philip II who had a mental disability, and an illegitimate son, Heracles, by his Persian mistress Barsine.

According to Arrian and Diodorus, when his companions asked to whom he left his kingdom, Alexander replied “to the strongest”. He is also said to have handed his signet ring to Perdiccas, the most senior of the generals at Babylon, who had succeeded Hephaestion as chiliarch, the highest officer at court. Whether these stories are true or later inventions, they captured what followed.

At Babylon the cavalry officers and the infantry quickly clashed. The officers wanted to wait for Roxana’s child; the infantry, led by Meleager, acclaimed Arrhidaeus as king. A compromise made Arrhidaeus king as Philip III, with Roxana’s child, if a son, as joint king. The boy was born later that year and became Alexander IV. Perdiccas acted as regent and soon had Meleager killed.

In the Settlement of Babylon, the provinces were shared among the generals. Ptolemy took Egypt, Antipater kept Macedonia and Greece, Lysimachus received Thrace, Antigonus kept Phrygia and neighbouring lands in Asia Minor and Eumenes was assigned Cappadocia. Seleucus became commander of the Companion cavalry. This fragile arrangement would collapse within two years into the Wars of the Diadochi.

In Greece, news of the king’s death prompted Athens and its allies to revolt against Macedonian rule in the Lamian War of 323–322 BC.

The fate of Alexander’s body

Alexander’s body was embalmed, reportedly by Egyptian and Chaldean specialists. An elaborate funeral carriage, described in detail by Diodorus, was built over the next two years to carry it, probably towards Macedonia, although some sources say Alexander wished to be buried at the oracle of Ammon at Siwa in Egypt.

In 321 BC Ptolemy I Soter intercepted the funeral procession in Syria and took the body to Egypt. It was placed first at Memphis and later moved to Alexandria. Possessing the body gave Ptolemy enormous prestige. Ptolemy IV later built a mausoleum, known as the Sema or Soma, for Alexander and the Ptolemaic kings.

The tomb remained a famous attraction. Strabo reports that a later Ptolemy, usually identified as Ptolemy X, replaced the original gold coffin with one of glass or alabaster. The Roman historian Cassius Dio says Augustus viewed the body in 30 BC and accidentally broke off a piece of the nose. Later emperors, including Septimius Severus and Caracalla, also visited.

By the late fourth century AD, the tomb’s location seems to have been forgotten. Searches in Alexandria and elsewhere have continued ever since, without success. Claims to have found it, at Siwa in the 1990s for example, have not been accepted by archaeologists.

Key people

• Alexander the Great (356–323 BC): King of Macedon and conqueror of the Persian Empire.
• Perdiccas (died 320 BC): Senior general who became regent of the empire after Alexander’s death.
• Philip III Arrhidaeus (c. 359–317 BC): Alexander’s half-brother, made joint king; killed on the orders of Olympias.
• Roxana (died c. 310 BC): Alexander’s Bactrian wife and mother of Alexander IV.
• Antipater (c. 400–319 BC): Regent of Macedonia, later accused in rumours of plotting the poisoning.
• Ptolemy I Soter (c. 367–282 BC): General who took Egypt and seized Alexander’s body.

Timeline

• 324 BC, autumn: Hephaestion dies at Ecbatana.
• 323 BC, spring: Alexander enters Babylon and prepares an Arabian expedition.
• 323 BC, late May or early June: After a drinking party with Medius, Alexander falls ill with fever.
• 323 BC, 10 or 11 June: Alexander dies in the palace at Babylon.
• 323 BC, June: The Settlement of Babylon makes Philip III king and Perdiccas regent.
• 323 BC, summer: Roxana gives birth to Alexander IV; the Lamian War breaks out in Greece.
• 321 BC: Ptolemy seizes the funeral carriage and takes the body to Egypt.
• 317–309 BC: Philip III, Olympias, Roxana, Alexander IV and Heracles are all killed in the succession wars.
• 30 BC: Augustus visits Alexander’s tomb in Alexandria.

Consequences

Alexander’s death removed the one person who held the empire together. Within a generation, his entire family had been murdered and his generals had made themselves kings. By the 270s BC three great kingdoms had emerged: the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt, the Seleucid Empire in Asia and the Antigonid kingdom in Macedonia.

These Hellenistic kingdoms spread Greek language, cities and culture across the Near East and Central Asia for three centuries, until they were absorbed by Rome and Parthia. In this sense, Alexander’s early death shaped the world far more than a long reign might have done.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Alexander’s last words are known exactly. Fact: The phrase “to the strongest” is reported by Arrian and Diodorus, but they wrote centuries later and admitted that accounts differed.
• Myth: Alexander was certainly poisoned. Fact: Poison rumours circulated, but the ancient historians themselves doubted them, and there is no firm evidence.
• Myth: Alexander’s tomb has been found. Fact: No claimed discovery has been confirmed; its location remains unknown.

Why it matters

The death of Alexander the Great is one of the great turning points of ancient history. It ended the idea of a single empire uniting Greece, Egypt, Persia and India, and opened the Hellenistic age of rival kingdoms. The mystery of his illness and his lost tomb continue to fascinate historians, doctors and the public alike.