On this day 323BC…Alexander succumbs to poisoned wine

Alexander the Great died on this day 323 BC in Babylon but did he succumb to alcoholism and disease or a cup of poisoned wine?

There has long been suspicion that the great conqueror met a less than natural death, he was only 32 after all and Macedonian politics was famous for its underhand and deadly nature. Alexander’s own father, Philip, had been cut down by an assassin’s blade, a deed, some say, Alexander may have had a hand in.

Details of Alexander’s death are somewhat unclear, with the chief ancient chroniclers of his life providing differing accounts.

All though are agreed that before his death Alexander had been entertaining guests in Babylon, that copious quantities of wine had been consumed and that foul play was behind his demise.

Plutarch relates that Alexander fell ill after entertaining his admiral Nearchus and another military companion, Medius of Larissa.

Diodorus, more specifically, declares that Alexander downed a large bowl of wine in honour of Heracles, after which he was struck down in great pain.

Alexander lingered for some days until his death, which in turn caused his enormous empire to crumble as his generals, the diadochi, began fighting among themselves.

Many of the accounts finger a general called Antipater as the poisoner. Left behind as regent of Greece while Alexander set off to conquer the world, by June 323 he had recently stripped of his post as viceroy and was a staunch opponent of Alexander’s mother, Olympias.

As such he may have feared his summons to Babylon were tantamount to his death sentence and decided to preempt his would-be executioner.

To add to Antipater’s suspicions, Alexander was increasingly violent and unstable at this point, traits only exacerbated by a strong taste for drink – the Macedonians already being infamous in the Greek world for not drinking wine diluted with water.

Several of his former generals and close friends had fallen victim to Alexander’s wrath in this way; Parmenion, Philotas and, most dramatically, Cleitus.

Cleitus the Black was a veteran Macedonian officer who had even saved Alexander’s life in the Battle of Granicus. In 328 BC while staying at Maracanda (modern Samarkand in Uzbekistan) the pair got into a heated, drunken argument over Alexander’s achievements, his increasingly oriental lifestyle and the way in which he was conducting his campaigns.

Enraged at Cleitus’ remarks, Alexander grabbed a javelin and killed the old warrior before collapsing in a wine-soaked heap to weep over the corpse. It was in another fit of drunken madness that Alexander and several comrades had torched the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis in 330 BC.

One can see why Antipater was a little concerned at what his meeting with Alexander might bring.

The stories of poisoning were for many years taken with a pinch of salt. Historians reasoned that Alexander’s years of campaigning, the many wounds he had suffered and his over indulgence in wine all contributed to his failing health and that a disease, perhaps typhus or a virus, finished him off.

They also argued that no poison of the time would allow Alexander to linger on for as long as 11 days after he fell ill until his death. More recent research however has brought the poisoning theory back into the spotlight.

Leo Schep of the New Zealand National Posions Center has long argued that white hellebore (Veratrum album) would not only bring on the same symptoms described by Alexander’s chroniclers but lead to a long, lingering death.

In 2014 Schep published his research in the medical journal Clinical Toxicology. He pointed out that the toxic flower was well known to the ancients and a mild application was often used to induce vomiting.

Although its taste is very bitter, it would certainly be possible to mask it in a large quantity of the strong, undiluted wine Alexander liked so much…

Foul murder or misadventure? Either way it seems that the drink did for Alexander the Great in the end.