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We can't compare diseases in the age of Alexander with the ones of our times; for this reason I quoted William Osler, a doctor of early XX cent., who knew nothing of antibiotics, X-rays, ultrasounds and blood transfusions. Besides , it is universally known that in ancient times there were more deat...

Having said that, I don't think it follows that Antipater was recalled at the same time that Craterus set out, so he hadn't necessarily had a year to plot Alexander's death. Of course we don't know exactly what happened, but it is possible that Craterus was actually sent with Antipater's recall pap...

Let me insist on pneumonia (or better on a sum of causes, pneumonia among them). In 1901 (not 2024!) William Osler wrote: "The most widespread and fateful of all acute diseases, pneumonia is now the 'Captain of the Men of Death', to use the phrase applied by John Bunyan to consumpion" (Wi...

in the interest of accuracy: it is correct that a spontaneous pneumothorax does not have long term effects on health (except some have a tendency to recur), but Alexander had a haemato-pneumothorax from a penetrating chest wound. that's a very different pathology. it will have left extensive pleura...

Going off at a tangent, why did Alexander summon the officers to assemble in the hall/courtyard? Did he want them there to issue instructions about the Arabia campaign, maybe that he would catch them up when he was recovered, or that it was postponed? Or did he realise he was dying and want them th...

So why did Antipater wait that long before arranging for Alexander to be poisoned? It wouldn't have taken Cassander 12 months to get to Babylon. We don't know but maybe it wasn't so easy to poison Alexander. After Hephaestion's death, Alexander was mourning and after that, he was campaigning agains...

I rather wonder why AdamKvanta don't mention among the possible cause of pneumonia in Alexander's illness the chest wound in the Malloi city, perhaps with pneumothorax complications. Thanks for the comment, hiphys. I didn't mention Alexander's pneumothorax because usually, a healed pneumothorax has...

Sorry, not convinced. As Plutarch said, the poisoning theory didn't surface until about 5 years after Alexander's death in a pamphlet designed to denigrate Cassander in the wars of the successors. I wrote about it here https://pothos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47178&hilit=holkias#p47178 . Actual...

Hi, yes I'd agree that a cold/chill wouldn't kill Alexander, but they could have developed into pneumonia, which could well have killed him. But, of course, the fever could also have come from another infection. I agree that some people are at an increased risk for developing severe or life-threate...

So after a week of a high fever, it seems it did not break and Alexander got progressively weaker. Does this match the symptoms of arsenic poisoning? Was Alexander reinfected with something? The constant baths did not lower or break his fever. We do not know what other treatment he received. Thanks...

marcus wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 7:50 pm This looks great! I haven't had a chance to read it in full yet, but it looks as if you've put together a pretty comprehensive review of the source material. Well done and thanks.

Thanks! I appreciate your kind comments.

Inspired by Alexias, I made a chronological source rearrangement of Alexander's last days without the poison narrative and the romances. However, this is not a reconstruction like I did in this thread: https://www.pothos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7309. Here I quote the sources explicitly so there is...

All of this assumes the Ephimerides were real ... which is actually disputed from Badian forward, for some very good reasons, just as the so-called "last plans" may have been half Peridkkas' fabrication. There may have *been* ephimerides, at least while ATG was in Babylon (following ancie...

Thanks for the comments. Maybe you could highlight the bits that don't come from the romances and don't deal with the poisoning so that you can read the fever narrative and see how it has been embroidered by the poisoning narrative. Well, dealing with the poisoning is not just in the romances and I ...

I made a reconstruction of the last days of Alexander the Great. It is basically a harmonization of all the available sources. I haven't seen it done by anyone. I think the best literature about this topic is in Curtius Rufus, Histories of Alexander the Great, Book 10 . Clarendon Ancient History Ser...