All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E17.The.Death.of.Alexander.the.Great.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Tonight, the suspicious
death of a legendary leader.

Alexander did more in 10 years

than other people
do in lifetimes.

He basically creates
the largest empire

the world has ever seen.

After all these years of
campaigning and severe wounds,

he makes it back to Babylon

and then suddenly dies.

Historians are still baffled

by what happened in the last
few weeks of Alexander's life.

He begins to see strange
omens that convince him

that his days are numbered.

Alexander sees
enemies everywhere

and he drowns his fears in
the bottom of a wine cup.

Now we'll explore
the top theories

surrounding the unsolved death

of one of history's
most celebrated figures.

It would only take a small
drop in his cup of wine

for it to all be over.

Alexander fails
to name a successor

and that may have
cost him his life.

Whatever killed Alexander,

it sure doesn't look
like a natural death.

Who or what killed
Alexander the Great?

323 BCE,

Alexander the Great lies
on his deathbed in Babylon,

present-day Iraq.

His generals file past him

for a final glimpse
of their king.

After all they've achieved,

it's hard to believe

that their seemingly
invincible leader is dying.

Alexander was surely
the most famous person

of ancient times.

He was feared, he was powerful,
and he could be brutal,

but he was also highly
educated and philosophical,

and that's what made him
such an interesting figure.

Alexander the Great
comes

from the Greek
kingdom of Macedonia,

and during the
fourth century BCE,

he basically rules over all of
the city-states in this area.

The biggest arch
rival of the Macedonians

is the Persian Empire.

At this time, the Greek
city states are reeling

from a violent attack from the
Persians a few years earlier,

and so Alexander is
now out for revenge.

His plan,

to assemble the largest
army Greece has ever seen

and march straight
into enemy territory.

One thing that a lot of
people might not realize

is that Alexander,
at least initially,

is actually the underdog.

Although he has a
highly trained army,

they are tiny in comparison
to the Persian army.

What Alexander
has in his favor

is that he's an expert
at rallying troops

from all across
these Greek kingdoms.

He's also someone who's a
cunning military strategist.

Alexander's army
defeats Persia in 331 BCE,

and he's just getting started.

In 10 years,

he conquers about two million
square miles of territory.

It is the greatest empire

that had ever been
seen at that time.

But as Alexander
conquers this vast territory,

he changes,

he becomes removed
from his own soldiers.

He begins to dress differently,

wearing luxurious robes and
the crown of a Persian king

and even begins to think
of himself as a God.

But in 324 BCE,

a tragic event brings
Alexander down to earth.

Alexander's army
is marching east

when his close friend
Hephaestion falls ill.

Now, Alexander calls his doctor

and demands that he
make Hephaestion well,

threatening him if he doesn't.

After about a week,

Hephaestion rallies, he
seems to be getting better.

And when they present
him with some food,

he immediately starts going
into convulsions and he dies.

For Alexander, this
tears him apart.

He's so overcome with grief

that he falls down on
Hephaestion's body.

He clings to his corpse for days

until the generals
manage to wrench him off.

After the funeral,

the Greek army continues
marching west towards Babylon,

the empire's new capital.

But Alexander remains
grief-stricken

and now obsessed with
his own mortality.

As Alexander
is returning

to the city of Babylon,
right before entering the city,

they see ravens
fighting in the sky

and several of them drop
dead right at his feet.

Now, the actions of
birds are often seen

as an omen of future events,

and having them fighting and
dying is seen as a bad omen,

which made him paranoid.

He acquires a seer,

to have an animal
sacrifice performed,

and the goal is to find out
from the insides of the animal

what your fate will be.

Well, the seer notes
that death is lurking

for someone powerful
inside Babylon,

and Alexander is convinced

that he's the person
this omen is meant for.

Once inside the city walls,

Alexander seeks distraction
from his growing fears.

He finds it in alcohol.

By the time they
get to Babylon,

the army, or at least
what's left of it,

are in a celebratory mood.

And so we're talking
about a lot of partying,

drinking fests going on
for days, weeks even,

and Alexander is fully
immersed in this.

For the Greeks, everything
was a chance to have a contest.

The king has to be best,

he has to be the best
fighter, the best hunter,

and he needs to be
the best drinker.

And so Alexander would
get involved sometimes

in these drinking contests,

and they were imbibing a
fair amount of alcohol.

At one of these parties,

Alexander consumes this
massive bowl of wine,

and almost immediately
after doing so,

he gets these acute abdominal
pains, doubles over,

and a really high fever.

All of the advisors
are beginning

to get a little worried

because they've just fought
to create this great kingdom

and Alexander the Great
doesn't have an heir.

And they all wanna know
who's gonna take over

in the event that
Alexander dies.

They ask him over
and over again,

"Who is gonna be
your successor?"

And for the most part, he
just refuses to answer them.

Finally, with one small breath,
he says, "To the strongest."

Not long after,

the great conqueror dies

without any official
pronouncement

of what did him in.

After all these years
of campaigning and severe wounds

and all the stress
and the exhaustion,

here he makes it back to
Babylon and then suddenly dies.

One potential cause, therefore,

might have been all that
partying and drinking.

As Alexander and
his army move east,

he becomes increasingly paranoid

that someone might try
to assassinate him.

One of the ways that he
deals with this paranoia

is by drinking.

Alexander's fear grows

after an assassination attempt
that involved Philotas,

the son of Parmenio, one
of his closest advisors.

Apparently Philotas had known

that there was a
conspiracy afoot.

He had heard rumors,

and yet he did not
report this to Alexander.

Alexander gets wind
of the assassination plot

and he goes
absolutely ballistic.

He has Philotas killed

and he actually has
Parmenio killed too.

And Parmenio is really an
innocent bystander in this.

It's his son, but he
doesn't know anything

about this assassination plot.

This means that
no one is safe.

Anybody could be
implicated in a conspiracy,

anybody could be killed.

From this point on,

Alexander is said to experience

uncontrollable fits
of anger and remorse,

usually followed by drinking
binges that last days

and sometimes turn deadly.

Alexander the Great has
a friend named Cleitus,

one of his companions in battle,

who actually saved Alexander's
life several times.

Cleitus is trying to
give him some advice

and he says, "Now that
you've defeated the Persians,

you should be following the
Macedonian traditional customs

and not these Persian customs."

And Alexander gets so mad

that he actually takes a pike

and runs it through
Cleitus and kills him.

Alexander, though, is
immediately distraught,

he can't believe what he's done.

He locks himself in his
room for several days.

He calls himself a murderer,

feeling tremendous
guilt and shame.

Modern people would
look at this and say,

this is classic
alcoholic behavior.

We're talking about
drinking leads to violence,

leads to grief, to shame.

He is volatile,

he is dangerous,

and for anyone around him,

they risk his wrath simply
by saying the wrong thing.

Now in Babylon
with little to occupy his time

and many of his closest
companions dead,

Alexander's unrestrained
drinking consumes him.

Very few of his
advisors wanna stop him

for fear of losing
their own heads,

but his doctors do
come in and say,

"Look, you have to stop
drinking alcohol here.

Just drink some water."

Instead of
getting better,

Alexander is spiraling downward.

And even though he's
tremendously thirsty,

he wants more wine.

Consuming excessive
amounts of alcohol

without ever drinking water
can lead to a condition

that's called acute
necrotizing pancreatitis.

This is a condition
where the pancreas rots

as it's overwhelmed
with alcohol,

and so this can lead to pain,

it can lead to paralysis,

and ultimately death.

For many scholars,

alcohol poisoning remains
the most likely cause

of Alexander's slow
and agonizing death,

but others say
it's not so simple.

It could have been

that Alexander the Great
drank himself to death,

but maybe it wasn't something
that Alexander did to himself,

maybe something
malicious took place.

323 BCE.

Alexander the Great,

one of the ancient world's
most victorious leaders,

is dead at 32.

As soon as the
news is announced,

accusations fly about
who is responsible.

If anyone could have
seen Alexander's death coming,

it might have been him.

In fact, in his final years,

he sees plots everywhere,

and so if someone
were to kill him,

they would have to be
within his very small circle

of trusted confidants.

Very few Macedonian kings
died of old age in their beds.

Most of them died
with their boots on

and some of them died
from assassination,

so conspiracies against the
king certainly weren't uncommon.

The reality, though, is it's
really hard to murder a king,

especially one who's
doing everything they can

to protect themselves from
precisely that outcome.

Even Alexander's
own trusted advisors

were having trouble
accessing him.

There's really only one person

who would be able to
get that close to him,

that's the person who
shares his bed chamber.

While fighting
n Bactria,

near present-day Afghanistan,

Alexander becomes
infatuated with Roxana,

the beautiful daughter
of a defeated king.

Scholars have debated

about exactly what she
means for Alexander,

with many saying that in fact
she was the love of his life.

Alternatively, she could
have just been a pawn

in a political game
to cement an alliance.

In either case, Roxana
is incredibly ruthless

and capable in her own right.

You have to think
through her eyes for a second.

Alexander has just defeated
her father and her family,

and now he's literally
taking her as his wife,

so she doesn't necessarily
like this arrangement.

And then he's got this
best friend, Hephaestion,

and maybe she's a
little jealous of him.

For many years, Hephaestion
is Alexander's closest friend

and probably his lover.

And when Hephaestion falls ill,

Alexander brings his doctors
in to try to treat him,

he gets better temporarily,

but then when he
consumes a meal,

he suddenly convulses and dies.

Some historians remain convinced

that these details point
to one thing, poison.

According to some scholars,

there was only one person in
Alexander's innermost circle

who would have had the nerve

to have actually executed
someone like Hephaestion,

that would've been Roxana.

She has the know-how
and the access,

and so perhaps she
poisoned his friend

to secure her position.

If she's willing to do that,

then what's to stop her
from poisoning Alexander?

Alexander and
Roxana are very close.

She travels with him everywhere.

In fact, he takes her on
his subsequent campaigning

in Afghanistan and
even into India.

This is very unusual,

this is not something
Greeks and Macedonians do.

Roxana poses another
really important threat

to the Macedonian throne in
that if she becomes pregnant,

she will produce a
half-Bactrian offspring,

which could be a real
legitimacy problem

for those who want him to
have a purely Macedonian heir.

But after the war is won

and Alexander and
his wife march home,

their special bond
begins to fray.

On his way home,

Alexander visits
the Persian kingdom

in order to consolidate
his territory.

While there,

he marries the daughter
of the dead Persian king,

her name is Stateira.

Immediately she becomes
a threat to Roxana.

Two women, both capable
of producing male sons,

one of them is gonna have
her son succeed, not both.

Some historians theorize

that Roxana could be
behind Alexander's death,

especially if the king
decides that Stateira's child,

who is of more noble ancestry,

should inherit the
throne and not Roxana's.

Let's remember
that the progression

of Hephaestion's symptoms
and ultimate death

are similar to Alexander's.

If it was a poisoning,

it's possible that the same
poison may have been used

to kill them both.

At the time of
Alexander's death,

both these women are pregnant.

And for women in a
polygamous situation,

their main ties are
not to their husbands,

but to their children,

that's how they stay alive.

According to Plutarch,

after Alexander dies,

Roxana sends a
letter to Stateira,

but she signs it under
the name of Alexander.

It instructs Stateira
to go to Babylon.

When she arrives,

both her and her unborn child
are immediately slaughtered

and their bodies are
thrown into a well

and covered with earth.

It's an epic
tale of jealousy and betrayal,

but to many it doesn't
stand up to scrutiny.

Roxana would have
a lot of trouble

going back to Greece
without Alexander

because there are many
native Macedonians

who could very easily
take up the mantle

of Alexander's kingship,

and she would have no
stake in continuing

to represent Alexander
if she was alone.

Without the
protection of Alexander,

she's a sitting duck.

And so once he's dead,

it wouldn't take much for
any of the rival generals

to then turn around
and have her killed.

In 323 BCE,

Alexander the Great
rules over an empire

that spans three continents,

but he neglects to do one
final thing before he dies,

name a successor.

Remember,
Alexander's last words

when asked to whom did
he leave his empire were,

"To the strongest."

So it wouldn't be
a stretch to think

that one of his close associates

would try to be the strongest,
get rid of Alexander,

and take over the empire.

According to several
ancient sources,

Alexander's own mother
has, quote, "Sound proof"

that somebody in
Alexander's inner circle

was trying to poison him.

One name quickly
comes under suspicion.

If anyone out there thinks
that they have rightful claim

to Alexander's empire,

it would be the person
who is back in Greece

essentially keeping
the throne warm

while Alexander's
off on his exploits.

While Alexander
was away,

campaigning in Asia
for some 11 years,

he had left Greece
under the watchful eye

of a regent named Antipater.

Antipater came to power
as one of Philip II,

Alexander's father's generals.

Antipater, in his mind,

has been running things for
Alexander for the last 10 years.

He should be in power
if Alexander's dead.

Alexander never saw it that way.

In his mind,
Antipater's handling of

the Greek city-states

is a minor issue
next to this glory

that Alexander has seized
for himself in Persia.

Antipater might have
expected

that eventually this
man will fall in battle

and that he'll have an
easy path to succession.

So when Alexander conquers
Babylon and Persia

and now is preparing to come
back to Greece a victor,

Antipater knows that
his time is running out.

The idea would be to
do it while he's still away,

maybe while he's still
celebrating, while he's weak,

while he's not paying attention,

and so the place to do
this would be Babylon.

If Antipater is
gonna make his move,

it's gotta be now.

And in fact,

with Alexander drinking
himself into a bloody stupor,

now is the perfect time.

But Antipater
can't knock off his rival

in person,

there are too many eyes on him.

Instead, some historians
believe the general sends

one of his sons to do
his dirty work for him.

All it will take
is a dash of poison

and Alexander never
leaves Babylon.

It's a clever plan if
Antipater's son can pull it off.

Alexander, at this
point, is quite paranoid

about conspiracies,

so it's gonna be pretty hard

for somebody to smuggle
poison into the palace.

In order
for this to work,

it would have to be a very
small amount of a lethal poison.

This poison would
have to be so potent

that it would do
the job in one dose.

There is an ancient poison

that perfectly fits
this description.

Alexander has a decline
that moves progressively.

It begins with stomach pains,

then he begins to experience
a complete lack of energy.

His heart rate slows,

then he slips into
a coma and dies.

Scientists and
historians have come up

with one potential poison

that seems to match what it
was that Alexander suffered.

It's a small plant
called Veratrum album,

and a little bit of this
plant goes a really long way.

All it would take would be a
tiny drop of poison in his cup

and it would all be over.

But there's one key symptom

Veratrum album doesn't cause,

something mentioned in
nearly every account

of Alexander's death,

a high fever.

Historians theorize

that another poison could
have also been used.

It's a little known poison

that would account for all
of Alexander's symptoms,

it also is found
along the River Styx.

In Greek mythology,

the River Styx,

besides being a gateway
to the underworld,

is also the place
where the God Zeus

has all the other gods
swear oaths to him.

If they lie, he makes them
drink from the River Styx

and they can't speak,
they can't move,

they can't do anything.

Modern toxicologists believe

there's truth
behind this legend.

The River Styx is
a mythological river,

but is often identified

with the Mavroneri River
on the Greek Peloponnese.

And in this river
there is a bacteria

that grows there
called calicheamicin,

and when ingested can lead
to paralysis and then death.

And one of the things
about calicheamicin

is that it causes high fever.

It would be easy to
smuggle calicheamicin

into Alexander's palace

because it's basically
in the form of water,

and so bringing
in a jug of water

would be completely
above suspicion.

There's no definitive
smoking gun evidence

that it was Antipater,

but his actions after
Alexander's death

do suggest a certain
amount of ruthlessness.

In addition to
immediately

consolidating his
hold on Greece,

he also summons Roxana
and her son back to him,

throws them in a dungeon,

and ultimately, his
henchman murder them.

Not everyone
agrees that Antipater would risk

sending his son and
heir to the banquet,

especially considering that
Alexander deeply mistrusts him.

All of our major
sources on Alexander's death

acknowledge this rumor that
Antipater is somehow involved,

but it's very difficult
to disentangle

what is the truth and what isn't

because the struggles
between Alexander's generals

in the division of his
empire following his death.

In the
successor wars,

it got so
incredibly nasty.

You wanted to blacken the
name of your opponents,

and so this appears to have
been a story that is fostered

by another side in this fight.

While the citizens
of Greece are shocked

by Alexander the
Great's sudden death,

the king had feared
it for years.

By the time he arrives
in Babylon in 323 BCE,

Alexander is so paranoid

that the list of people
who can get close to him

is very short.

At the top of that list is
his most trusted friend,

and some say the man
with the most to gain

by getting his king
out of the way.

One of Alexander's
closest associates is Ptolemy.

He had grown up with Alexander,

been educated with
him, trained with him,

and he was there by his side
through the whole campaign.

This was a general
that Alexander trusted,

he was essentially
his right-hand man.

So maybe Ptolemy is
thinking to himself,

if anybody's gonna take
over, it's gonna be me.

Alexander treats
him like a brother,

so if he's the one who's
behind this suspicious death,

Alexander would never
have even seen it coming.

Ptolemy's insider
knowledge of future campaigns

may give him a strong motive
for ending Alexander's reign.

After a decade of
relentless war,

Ptolemy and his army
have had enough.

Alexander and his
men saw everything

you could possibly imagine
over the course of this decade,

arid desert, famine, monsoons,

winter in the mountains,

and it would have
worn these men down

to an unimaginable degree.

Once they get to India,

Alexander wants to keep going,

but his men have other ideas.

In fact, they mutiny,
refusing to go further.

In a rage, Alexander says he's
just gonna leave them behind.

If they don't follow him,

he's gonna keep going and take
all of the glory for himself.

Once Alexander
realizes that even his

own generals don't want to
continue the campaign,

he retreats into his
tent for three days.

When he comes back out,

he tells everyone that he's
communicated with the gods

and they have told him that it
is unwise to advance further.

Of course, this allows
Alexander to save face.

He doesn't have to say,
well, I gave into the troops,

they made me turn back,

no, it was the
gods who did this.

So now they're
back in Babylon.

They've conquered
everything that you can,

all of Western Asia.

They've watched a lot of their
friends, their comrades, die

and they wanna go home.

Unfortunately for his soldiers,

Alexander is not finished.

He doesn't want to just go home,

he wants to embark on
another huge campaign,

he wants to invade Arabia,

and no one is particularly
eager to do that.

It might be at this point
that a man like Ptolemy steps in

if only to save the
army from the commander.

Already the men are broken,

they don't wanna move on,

but Alexander does.

This is the time to put
a stop to all of this.

So the idea would be
that maybe Ptolemy used a poison

that wasn't super potent,

but that killed over a
longer period of time.

And a poison that
acted in this way

that was readily
available is arsenic.

Arsenic is
found in soil and rock

all over the world.

It's tasteless
and it's odorless.

It's a poison that works in
a very generalized manner

across the body,

and so people will
see physical symptoms,

but not necessarily be able
to trace it to one cause.

An interesting
thing about arsenic

is that it gets into the tissues

and it slows the process
of decomposition.

And one thing that the
ancient sources say

is that Alexander's body took
a very long time to decay.

But one has to
wonder whether Ptolemy,

who is obviously traveling
on campaign like Alexander

in much greater comfort
than an ordinary soldier,

would've murdered his friend

just because the army had
lost the will to fight.

Ancient historians suggest

that a more personal motivation

may be behind Ptolemy's
desire to kill his king.

Alexander has never
named a successor,

and there's a question of
who is going to follow him

if anything happens to him
on the field of battle.

Ptolemy might well
have wanted to ensure

that he was the person
who would take over.

Some believe Ptolemy's actions

immediately after
Alexander's death

suggest he played a role
in the king's demise.

The body of
Alexander becomes

a really important
ideological tool,

and so his successors fight
over his body as a way to show

that they are the real
chosen heir of Alexander.

Ptolemy is the first
one to hijack the body

and take it with him to Egypt.

By bringing
Alexander's body to Egypt,

Ptolemy is being quite
shrewd politically.

This legitimizes not
only his reign in Egypt,

but perhaps a claim to
Alexander's entire empire

as the rightful successor.

It also is a convenient
way to control the body

and thus preclude
any possibility

of people noticing
any suspicious signs

of arsenic poisoning,

if that's indeed
what Ptolemy did.

Not everyone is
on board with this theory.

Many scholars contend that
Ptolemy has more to gain

with Alexander alive than dead.

Alexander is leading the
army and Ptolemy has his ear.

There's no clear
succession plan,

and so if Ptolemy were
to plot his death,

he would have no way of knowing

whether he would end
up being the successor.

Why take the risk of
assassinating Alexander

when he could have
simply succeeded him

had Alexander died of
other unusual causes?

After Alexander the Great ends

his military campaign,

he seems eager to regain
the trust of his troops.

Some historians wonder if
this desire may be behind

his untimely sickness and death.

When Alexander
gets to Babylon,

he decides he's gonna
make this his new capital.

For one, it's this
famous city in the east,

two, it's much closer
to all of this land

that he's just conquered.

Babylon is 2,000
years old at this time.

It's a wonderful city,

but it is also cramped and in
drastic need of renovation,

and so Alexander immediately
inspects the defenses

to make sure they are secure.

As a leader of men,

he wants to be close
to his soldiers,

so he goes out
there on inspections

and he shows his soldiers
that he's not above them,

that he's willing to
get his hands dirty.

Military camps have long been known

as breeding grounds for
all kinds of diseases.

In the Old Testament,

there's a story about
a Mesopotamian king

who lays siege to
the city of Jerusalem

until a plague breaks
out in his camp,

and suddenly the soldiers
are thrown into disarray

and they stagger back home.

It makes sense that
if Alexander is out there

walking around in the city,

getting really close to people,

that he would've been exposed
to very unsanitary conditions,

the precise conditions
that would've given rise

to some sort of
terrible illness.

History's earliest
mention of an epidemic

actually comes from a
Mesopotamian tablet.

It's a medical record that
lists the cause of death

of the people on the tablet,

and it uses a word that
most scholars translate

to either be plague
or pestilence.

In Alexander's home
country of Greece,

there was a plague
that is believed

to have originated in Ethiopia,

and it was carried
to Athens on ships

and it killed about 1/3
of the entire population.

Some scholars think that
this might have been a variant

to bubonic plague.

Others think that this might
have been typhus or measles,

both of which were
incurable in this period.

But there's
a more likely killer

hiding in Alexander's
military camps.

Today, the area
around the city of Babylon

is this dry, arid desert,

but in Alexander's time, it
would've been this marshland

that was a breeding
ground for mosquitoes.

Some epidemiologists
have suggested

that the true killer might
have been West Nile virus.

In very
marshy conditions,

West Nile virus is rife

and it infects mosquitoes,
but also birds.

And we know from the sources
that Alexander saw ravens

that were fighting
with one another

and then they just
collapsed dead at his feet,

so they may have been
infected with West Nile virus.

It's possible that
these waterborne mosquitoes

contract the disease
from these ravens,

and it's only a matter of time

before it transfers to
the human population.

What's interesting
about West Nile virus

is that its symptoms
mimic very closely

what Alexander's symptoms were,

so headaches, problems
with breathing,

respiratory distress, and fever.

Mosquitoes also carry

an even more lethal threat,

one of human history's
greatest mass murderers.

At one time, people speculated
that malaria had killed

almost half the human
beings who had ever lived.

While recent
reevaluations have said

that statistic is
probably a bit overblown,

malaria is still one
of the biggest killers

of humans throughout history.

Ancient texts from
Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece

have described illnesses that
have malaria-like symptoms.

And more recent
studies have even shown

that malaria was present
in these populations

at the time of
Alexander the Great.

While there are
four types of malaria,

only one, falciparum,
is especially fatal.

The parasites develop
silently in the liver

until they mature,

and then they multiply and
invade the red blood cells.

The trajectory
of the disease closely mirrors

the account of
Alexander's decline,

and ultimately, his death.

Alexander dies in late May,

and mosquitoes are most
active during this period

of the late spring
and the early summer.

When you consider the
incubation period of malaria

of one to two weeks,

that would fit with the timeline

with Alexander
inspecting these camps,

possibly even boating
in the marshes.

Writings of
the time also say

that as Alexander becomes sick,

his sleep patterns
are thrown way off,

and this is a symptom
that's also consistent

with falciparum malaria.

Additionally,
malaria causes

stabbing back pain, delirium.

Both of those are things
that Alexander suffers from

in his final days.

We also know

that Alexander is
susceptible to malaria

as he most likely
caught it once before.

The ancient records show
that when Alexander was 23,

he did contract malaria,

but he was young,
he was healthy.

And so after two
months of bedrest,

he recovered and went on to
become Alexander the Great.

10 years later,

after fighting all these
battles, accumulation of wounds,

excessive drinking,

it's possible that
Alexander's body was not able

to fight off the disease in
the way that it had before,

and he ultimately
succumbed to it.

Before Alexander the Great dies,

he leaves three odd
instructions for his funeral.

One, that his unsuccessful
doctors carry his coffin.

Two, that his earthly
treasures be scattered

along the way to his grave.

And three, that his hand
swings free from his coffin.

Alexander could be saying,

"Look, I'm mortal, I'm dying,

all of the best doctors
couldn't save me,

I'm not taking anything with me.

Nobody could defeat
me, only death itself."

Despite the oppressive
Mesopotamian heat,

his body doesn't
decompose in a normal way.

And so in fact,

his followers increasingly
see him as a God.

Alexander had actually
been proclaimed a God

by Oracles in
Greece and in Egypt.

And so as someone divine,

many people would've imagined

that perhaps his body would
have never rotted or decayed,

that it would in fact have
been preserved eternally.

But a
recent theory suggests

that what these mourners are
witnessing is no miracle.

According to this
recent 2018 theory

from a New Zealand researcher,

Alexander was not
mummified magically,

but was in fact
trapped in his body,

unable to speak or even indicate
that he was still alive.

Guillain-Barre syndrome
is a rare autoimmune disorder.

It essentially causes
the body to be paralyzed,

even as the mind
is still active.

The exact cause of this
disorder is actually unknown,

but interestingly, scientists
have traced it back

to a particular bacterium
called campylobacter.

It's often in uncooked poultry,

and if it's ingested,

then it multiplies and it
ends up attacking the brain.

The syndrome
progresses slowly.

It first begins with
just a lack of energy,

and then some sleep aberrations,

but then you begin to get
numbness in the limbs,

which eventually
develops into paralysis.

If the body is unable
to fight off the disease,

then the brainstem
begins to fail.

Heartbeat is going to slow,

respiration is going to slow,

almost to the point of people
thinking that they're gone.

If this is what
happened to Alexander the Great,

then what all of the ancient
doctors would've seen

was a dead individual,

but actually Alexander would've
been in a deep, deep coma.

This could
explain why Alexander's body

doesn't decompose
for almost a week.

We don't know for sure
whether the mind is conscious

or simply functioning
on a low level.

However, those infected
could actually stay alive

for several days,

even though it appears
that they're dead.

Imagine if
Guillain-Barre syndrome

is what Alexander suffered from.

He may well have still
been alive and conscious

and witnessing his own funeral.

Eventually,

Alexander's brainstem would
stop working completely,

this is when true death occurs.

With Guillain-Barre syndrome,

one is comatose,
but still alive,

potentially for almost a week.

And after six days,

Alexander's body does
finally start to decompose.

After Alexander's funeral,

his vast kingdom that he
worked so hard to build up

immediately begins to fracture.

Individual territories
start rebelling

in the vacuum of power.

His generals, wanting
to seize control,

begin fighting with one another.

And many different parts
of the empire will collapse

within a few decades.

Alexander did
more in 10 years

than other people
do in lifetimes.

It wouldn't be until
the Roman Empire

that you would ever
see an empire as large,

and that took hundreds of years.

Alexander was more than

just a great military conquer.

By unifying three continents,

Europe, parts of
Africa, parts of Asia,

it resulted in a
mixing of cultures

that changed the
course of history.

Nobody has been able
to accomplish something

like this either before
or since Alexander,

and he did all this
before the age of 32.

Alexander the
Great is regarded

as one of history's most
successful military leaders.

He has inspired everyone from
Julius Caesar to Genghis Khan

and Napoleon Bonaparte.

Even today,

Alexander's brilliant war
strategies are studied

at West Point Military Academy,

but how this iconic leader died
remains a perplexing riddle

yet to be solved.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
History's Greatest Mysteries.