In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great

by David Grant

  Diodorus described the snakes behind the various venoms used and the Indian custom of burning wives on the dead husband’s funeral pyre; supposedly it was to discourage them from poisoning their spouses:

  The country, indeed, furnished no few means for this, since it produced many and varied deadly poisons, some of which when merely spread upon the food or the wine cups cause death. But when this evil became fashionable and many were murdered in this way, the Indians, although they punished those guilty of the crime, since they were not able to deter the others from wrongdoing, established a law that wives, except such as were pregnant or had children, should be cremated along with their deceased husbands…70

  Ancient Persian texts described further toxins and their methods of fabrication. The Great Kings took precautions and kept a calculus, the stone from the kidney or gall bladder of the mountain goat, at the bottom of their wine cups, for the nobility dished out poisons at dinner; the chapter heading extract from Xenophon’s Cyropaedia confirmed the ubiquity of the crime. The porous structure of the calculus was credited with counteractive powers and was called a padzahr, which broadly translates as ‘against poison’.71 Diodorus related how Darius III thwarted the assassination attempt by the grand vizier, Bagoas the ‘kingmaker’, finally forcing the captured eunuch to drink his own brew.72

  Plutarch and Ctesias reported that Queen Parysatis, mother of Artaxerxes II, fatally intoxicated her daughter-in-law by means of a carefully prepared knife; venom was administered by her maidservant to the side of a blade used to cut a bird in half. Taking the untainted meat, Parysatis chewed in pleasure while her daughter-in-law choked on her inheritance; Hesiod’s advice was never more relevant: ‘Invite your friend to supper, not your enemy.’ Revenge can, however, be a double-edged sword, for Plutarch went on to explain that: ‘The legal mode of death for poisoners in Persia is as follows. There is a broad stone, and on this the head of the culprit is placed; and then with another stone they smite and pound until they crush the face and head to pulp.’ That was the fate of the maidservant, while Parysatis was packed off to Babylon in shame.73

  THE BREW IN THE ASS’S HOOF

  Prolific as poisoning was, there can equally be no doubt that assassination was an integral part of Macedonian machinations; Badian noted: ‘Only two of Alexander’s predecessors in the 4th century BCE had not died by assassination… and only three among all the successors of Darius I.’74 Alexander and his father, Philip II, had contributed generously to the death toll of candidates (and their supporters) for the throne, and Pausanias alleged Cassander used poison when murdering both of Alexander’s sons: Alexander IV and Heracles.75

  Analysing the cause of Alexander’s death is not our central aim, but it is worth taking a look at recent autopsies of the claims. Peter Green’s portrayal of Alexander reminds us that ‘our ancient sources all record a tradition that Alexander was poisoned’, recalling that even Arrian and Plutarch referenced the conspiracy adjacent to their Journal extracts (T9, T10).76 Green’s influential portrait concluded, ‘this, rather, suggests poison, of a king who was unbearable and murderous’, and yet he added: ‘The illness had been long. On this one fact alone, all stories of poison founder… If, on the other hand, the King was not poisoned, the chances are that he was suffering from either raging pleurisy or, more probably, malaria.’77 These apparent volte-faces reemphasise the lack of evidence, or rather an investigative fog. Others too have argued for natural causes of death, with typhoid fever, West Nile encephalitis, methanol toxicity, acute pancreatitis and perforated peptic ulcers being promoted. Mary Renault quite plausibly suggested a water-borne disease, acquired from drinking the contaminated and excrement-filled Euphrates, had developed into pneumonia and then to pleurisy.78

  Plutarch and Arrian knew of a tradition – an offshoot of the Pamphlet’s finger pointing (T1, T2) – that claimed Aristotle gathered the poison from the River Styx by the cliffs of Nonacris (in the northern central Peloponnese) and he had it ferried to Babylon in a mule’s hoof, for this was the only vessel capable of holding the ferment.79 The only cure, proposed Lucian in his satirical Dialogues of the Dead, was repeated draughts of Lethe water from the river of oblivion, defying the mantra of Orphic mythology.80 Plutarch claimed that three days after Alexander had been pronounced dead, his body, which had been left untreated in the stifling June heat, remained in perfect condition.81 Curtius incorporated typical Vulgate thauma – the king kept his vital look for a full six days, to the extent that the embalmers dared not touch him fearing he may still be alive; Aelian mentioned an even more discreditable thirty days, unless this is a later manuscript corruption.82

  This condition, as many toxicologists would confirm, is an argument for, not against, the presence of chemical poison (if not methanol toxicity): ‘a remarkable preservation of the body is commonly, but not constantly, observed’, concluded one authoritative publication on arsenic use.83 Milne has argued for strychnine use at Babylon, though Engels proposed malaria to explain the preservation; both conditions, when resulting in either cyanosis or deep coma, could have led to the delayed putrefaction of the body.84

  However, a recent study of the episode in New Zealand by the National Poisons Centre in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago, perhaps the most detailed literary autopsy since the 1996 clinicopathological report prepared for the New England Journal of Medicine, argues against the above conclusions. It states that ‘lethal doses of strychnine’ would ‘typically cause death within 3-5 hours’, not longer. Moreover, in cases of arsenic poisoning ‘death occurs within 24h to 4 days’; ‘these symptoms do not match those displayed’ by Alexander ‘and can therefore also be discarded.’85 Although the Greeks would have had access to a wide range of attested toxic plants such as (using today’s scientific botanical labels) aconitum (aconite), conium maculatum (hemlock), artemisia (wormwood), hyoscyamus niger (henbane), and colchicum autumnale (autumn crocus), a better fit to Alexander’s relatively long decline would be the alkaloids present in veratrum, notably veratrum album: white hellebore.

  Plutarch recorded that Alexander had earlier written to Pausanias, the physician treating Craterus, to remind his veteran general to be vigilant in his use of hellebore, widely used as a self-induced purge, as was antimony.86 ‘Its emetic properties were well known to the Hellenes and it was readily available from Alpine pastures of Europe and Asia.’87 A key symptom of veratrum poisoning is the onset of epigastric pain that may also be accompanied with nausea and vomiting, and though victims can become completely incapacitated and even unable to move or speak, they do remain conscious. The National Poisons Centre report concluded that ‘veratrum alkaloids are readily extracted into alcohol by fermentation, and it is therefore possible’ that Iolaos spiked Alexander’s wine ‘with a volume of fermented veratrum extract.’88

  ‘THY SECRET FIRE BREATHE O’ER HER HEART, TO POISON AND BETRAY’: THE TALE OF TOXIC ROME89

  We may never know what truly killed the Macedonian king at Babylon, but reports of poisoning in Roman and Hellenistic history suggest the ancient art of toxicology was long established in the West. Archagathus, the grandson of Agathocles the tyrant of Syracuse, arranged for his grandfather’s eromenos (a younger male lover), Menon, to load his king’s tooth-cleaning quill with a putrefactive drug. As a result, Agathocles was unable to utter a sound, even when being burned alive by Oxythemis, the envoy of Demetrius Poliorketes, the patron of the Cardian historian Hieronymus.90 Once again, this is just one tradition and alternative endings exist. Inevitably the art of poison arrived in Rome; her ever-practical hand was employed in its development and it was to become big business across the empire.

  As early as the drafting of the laws of Twelve Tables (ca. 450 BCE) special dispositions were put in place for cases of murder from drugs.91 The first recorded Roman crime involving accusations of poisoning dates back to 331 BCE (the same year Alexander defeated Darius III at Gaugamela) when a suspiciously high mortality rate pointed to the
guilt of 190 Roman matrons who were then forced to drink their own cocktails.92 Similar cases in 186 BCE and 182 BCE resulted in the implication and death of over 5,000 alleged conspirators, again many of them women, when illustrious magistrates, consuls and men of rank mysteriously died. In 154 BCE two more ex-consuls were poisoned by their spouses and so prevalent was the use of poison by disgruntled wives that by Quintilian’s day the term ‘adulteress’ was apparently synonymous with the term ‘poisoner’.93 Cicero, Juvenal, and Tacitus reported various cases of patricide, matricide and even filicide using toxic substances, and they also named the women who provided the tools for a fee.94

  Pliny was particularly lucid on the sources and types used, including a vivid description of hemlock, cicuta in Latin, now so widespread that in 82 BCE the dictator Sulla (ca. 138-78 BCE) promulgated a strict law against its use.95 The Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis at this point categorised poisoners, assassins and magicians together.96 The term scelus, a crime, was employed by historians like Tacitus to indicate murder by poison, and the pigmentarii, the druggists behind them, were similarly restrained by law.97

  Mithridates VI of Pontus (ruled ca. 120-63 BCE), himself an adept in the art of poisons, had Crateus, his talented polypharmakos (broadly a ‘herbalist’), ever by his side.98 He was perhaps following Attalus III of Pergamum (ca. 170-133 BCE) who, according to Plutarch, ‘… used to grow poisonous plants, not only henbane and hellebore, but also hemlock, aconite, and dorycnium, sowing and planting them himself in the royal gardens, and making it his business to know their juice and fruits, and to collect these at the proper season.’99

  The redoubtable Mithridates, who claimed descent from both Alexander and Darius I, and who reintroduced a Macedonian-styled phalanx formation when facing Sulla in battle, was so fearful of assassination that he self-vaccinated with a daily dose of a wide range of known toxins in search of the universal antidote, the theriac, an illusive mix that became known as antidotum mithridatium.100 Rome granted Gnaeus Pompey wide-ranging powers to capture the Pontic king through the Lex Manilia. Pompey initially delayed any action, preferring first to establish useful alliances with the dynasts of the East in his own imitatio Alexandri. When finally caught, Mithridates had apparently built up such a constitution that he was unable to commit suicide by taking poison and had to resort to falling on the sword of a Celtic bodyguard, Bituitus, taking the knowledge of twenty-one languages with him.101 A less romantic tradition had him dying at the hand of the troops deserting to his son, Pharnaces; ambivalent on how he died, Rome granted Pompey honours for terminating the Pontic threat.102

  The Julio-Claudians used poison as liberally as garlic in defiance of Sulla’s decree.103 Germanicus, Nero’s grandfather, was rumoured to have fallen foul of the famous venefica, Martina, an accomplished maker of drugs and invocator of curse tablets.104 Tacitus dedicated considerable space to the intrigues and suspicions that fell upon Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Munatia Plancina, and ultimately their employer, the emperor Tiberius, in the wake of Germanicus’ death; the toxic term venenum (possibly derived from ‘Venus’ and originally meaning a love potion) appears on forty-four occasions in Tacitus’ Annals.105 Nero and Agrippina had the infamous Locusta in their service and they both kept the venefica gainfully employed after she (allegedly) assisted in the deaths of Claudius and his son; Locusta later opened an academy of poisons and tested her arts on convicted criminals. Agrippina went on to accuse Lollia Paulina, a rival for the position as fourth wife to Claudius, of black magic, and confiscated her property without trial.106

  Wealthy Romans, like the Persian nobility, had become so fearful of being targeted that praegustatores were indeed widely employed. These professional tasters, commonly slaves or freedmen, eventually formed a collegium and with good cause, for the emperors (or families of) Augustus, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vitellius (emperor 69 CE), Domitian, Hadrian, Commodus, Caracalla, Elagabalus (emperor 218-222 CE) and Alexander Severus, were all associated with some form of scandal involving poison.107 As in much else, Rome may have learned from Greek and Persian experience, but she was to have the last word on its sophistication.

  It is the emperor Claudius once again who interests us the most in any comparison to the reporting of Alexander’s illness. Suetonius recorded that ‘most people thought he had been poisoned’ and by his official taster no less.108 Suetonius followed with, ‘… an equal discrepancy exists between the accounts of what happened next. According to many, he lost his power of speech.’109 Suetonius described a painful night and brief recovery, followed by a second dose of poison and then a coma. Tacitus reported that the second dose was administered to Claudius on a feather, a technique used to induce vomiting and a standard part of the physician’s purge.110 Compare this to the Metz Epitome and the Romance texts (T1, T2), which extend the Vulgate recounting of the conspiracy in Babylon. Here we have the description of the second poisoning from a feather by Alexander’s cupbearer, Iolaos (Chares interestingly claimed Ptolemy had been Alexander’s taster), along with the king’s final night of agony and speechless condition, juxtaposed beside the Journal’s claim that Alexander was speechless for the final two days and nights (T3, T4):111

  In the meantime, Alexander was in a sorry state. He wanted to vomit and so asked for a feather: Iolaos gave the king a feather smeared with poison. When he put this down his throat… he was continuously racked with renewed and ever more excruciating pains. In this condition, he passed the night.112

  Had Roman biographers taken their lead from Pseudo-Callisthenes, or was the Romance itself a hydroscopic palimpsest (it had already absorbed the Pamphlet) that continued to absorb Roman biographical trends before adopting its final form in which less-colourful Pamphlet claims had been embellished? Perhaps, like the ever-present storms at sea in Greek plays (replayed in Virgil’s Aeneid), the central themes of the classical world simply infected and inhabited any biography with a low immune system. In which case Marcus Aurelius’ philosophical reflection comes readily to mind: ‘Constantly reflect on how all that comes about at present, came about just the same in days gone by…. [at] the whole court of Philip, or Alexander, or Croesus, for in every case the play was the same, and only the actors were different.’113

  ‘QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO’ – MUSHROOMS: THE FOOD OF THE GODS114

  Claudius had reportedly dined on fatally seasoned mushrooms, a last meal Nero termed ‘the food of the gods’,115 and tradition gives us a death that implicated three assassins.116 Nero, whose name theatrically stood for ‘strong’ or ‘valiant’ in the Sabine tongue, had his personal guard, the Phalanx of Alexander, to call upon, so any rumour of Agrippina’s hand in the murder was surely ‘suppressed by the power of the people implicated by the rumour’, to repeat Curtius on Cassander’s suppression of the Pamphlet rumours.117

  Having murdered his mother, possibly two wives, as well as two literary intellectuals, along with countless other prominent citizens who were sacrificed to divert the wrath of an approaching comet, Nero finally went mad and planned to poison the entire Senate.118 Deserted by his bodyguard, Nero discovered that the golden box containing Locusta’s poison had abandoned him too. After a dramatic earthquake and a lightning storm accompanied his hurried flight from Rome, he had a grave dug, exclaiming: ‘Qualis artifex pereo!’ – ‘What an artist dies in me!’ As horsemen could be heard fast approaching, Nero recalled the Iliad: ‘The thunder of galloping horses is beating against my ears’, and when his pursuers finally closed in, he is said to have stabbed himself in the throat, and yet managed to utter: ‘Too late! But ah, what loyalty!’ It was a thanks to the centurion attending him.119 His death fell on June 9th, or more curiously, possibly on the 11th of the month (in the year 68 CE), for the latter day of the year was portentously shared with Alexander.120

  But the artist in Nero never died; his death inspired ongoing rumours that captured the imaginations of his biographers and the artistry began in earnest. More in keeping with Nero’s reputation, an alternative version ha
s him smashing two invaluable Homeric crystal goblets to deny his successors their use upon hearing of the defecting legions.121 Nero had intended to throw himself into the Tiber, and history really ought to have granted the self-proclaimed ‘great tragic actor’ a more extended soliloquy. Alas that would not do, as it was well known Agrippina had forbidden philosophy from his classes, just as Seneca had hidden all rhetorical works from his avowed pyromaniac pupil.122

  Nero had, in fact, attempted a more practical immortality by slotting his name into the Roman calendar, following in the footsteps of Julius Caesar and Augustus.123 Luckily, the suggested spring month, Neroneus, became nothing more than an April folly, whereas Commodus later attempted to rename all twelve months after his own by-now twelve adopted names;124 Rome declared a de facto damnatio memoriae naming him a public enemy, restoring all nomenclatures to their rightful places.125 Commodus was strangled in his bath after another bungled attempt at poison. As Nietzsche warned, the conscience of the Imperium Romanum was not prickled by wholesale linguistic, literary, or intercalary, reinvention.126

  ALLEGORICAL PICTURE FRAMING

  Death in itself does not sell scrolls unless the literary taxidermist has stuffed the corpse with a didactical potpourri, for the final pages of a parchment had to justify the price; and whether to eulogise or to condemn, the classical era demanded that the death suitably picture-framed the life. So underlying all great exits were fitting allegorical stories that alluded to deeper meanings, sometimes subtle and oft-times blatant. The bean field was a foil to ridicule Pythagoras’ strict vegetarian doctrine, a stance summed up by Ovid with ‘what a heinous crime is committed when guts disappear inside a fellow-creature’s guts’;127 Pythagoras had warned against the kuanos, kidney pulses or broad beans, after he noted its organ-like shape, providing Plutarch much to ponder in his treatise On the Eating of Flesh.128