Alexander the King

by Peter Messmore

  The group stood and raised their cups toward Nearchus. “To Nearchus!” they all shouted.

  Alexander, now completing his fourth kantharos, grasped the cup with both hands, tilted his head back, and opened his throat to receive its contents. The king had saved the rich, unmixed wine that his father had named Philip Red for this elite gathering of his closest friends. It was Alexander’s favorite, grown in Macedonia’s Gardens of Midas and shipped to him in Babylon.

  Halfway through the gurgling drink, Alexander stopped and dropped his kantharos. His eyes were transfixed on an invisible object, three armlengths in front of him. His wine spilled out of the kantharos and down the front of his Persian robe. It then crashed onto the table and splattered onto the marble floor.

  “Ahhhhh!Ahhhhh!” Alexander shouted with a guttural utterance of pain. Both of his hands went to the lower-left abdomen, and he slowly fell to his knees. “God,” he gasped. “I’ve never felt such pain.” Then he fell to the floor.

  Five of his friends were beside him in an instant.

  “What is wrong?” Ptolemy asked with concern. “Is it something that you ate?” Ptolemy looked around suspiciously, already making assumptions about what might have happened.

  Alexander continued making rasping sounds and could not answer him.

  “Take him to his bedroom,” Perdiccas commanded in a strong voice. “Put a double security guard around him. Get the slaves in here that prepared his meal. I want his new wine taster in here, now!”

  Alexander’s physician, Philip, ordered several of the men to carry him to his room. “Don’t touch his stomach,” Philip said. “That is the source of his pain.”

  Ptolemy and Eumenes slid their arms under Alexander’s back and lifted him off the floor. Nearchus and Medius did the same under his legs.

  The group half-ran to the king’s quarters, all but one fearing the worst. Each had seen Alexander wounded in battle more than once, but this was ominous. Already, the king’s face was losing its color; then suddenly, he started vomiting. His body temperature was hot even through his clothes. It had all happened so quickly.

  ≈

  Alexander had only ten days left to live. The day after the banquet, his fever continued unabated. He took several cooling baths to lower his temperature with no success. However, he was well enough to dine alone with Medius that evening. Fatefully, his consumption of wine never stopped.

  The next day he played dice with several of his bodyguards and seemed to rally. A scroll arrived from Olympias, but he was too ill to read it. “Put it beside my bed,” he told Eumenes. “I’ll read it when I’m better.” The following day he spent his waking hours in the bathhouse attempting to lower his raging fever.

  On the fifth day, he rallied and was able to speak at length with Nearchus about his ocean voyage around the Gedrosian and his coming explorations of Arabia and Africa. Nearchus reminisced at length with Alexander, then left his bedroom, encouraged that he would survive.

  The following day, Alexander realized that he was critically, perhaps mortally, ill. “Put all of my senior officers and officials on notice,” he said feebly to Eumenes and Philip. “I want them near me if I should start to fail.”

  A week after the banquet he called for Perdiccas. The man who had aided Alexander in the plot to eliminate his father’s assassin sat close to the king and, with difficulty, heard him speak in a feeble, whisper-voice. “This ... this is my end,” he stammered. “Take my ring. I name you my successor, Perdiccas. Others will ... challenge this. Get ready.”

  Perdiccas took the ring, but did not put in on his finger, not while Alexander was alive. “What else would you have me do?” Perdiccas asked.

  Alexander started to answer, but a deep cough rattled his lungs and stopped his words. His face contorted in pain, his lips trembled uncontrollably. Then, with a weak left hand, he motioned for Perdiccas to leave. It was all that he was capable of doing.

  ≈

  The king’s Macedonian fighters heard only wild rumors about what was happening to Alexander. After a week of waiting in the dark, they took action. Several hundred of them surrounded the palace and demanded to see their monarch. When Perdiccas refused them entry, fifty of them ran to an exterior wall opposite the king’s bedroom and broke a hole in it with a battering ram. More than five hundred men then lined up quietly and filed into the bedroom to see if Alexander was alive.

  Alexander heard the crashing of stone and mortar and knew what was happening. He was pleased but could do little to show his appreciation of his men’s direct action.

  Soon a long line of his fighters began to file past his bed. Some dipped their heads to Alexander, others got on their knees briefly. More than a few wept openly when they saw their king’s condition. He was alive, but just barely.

  Alexander’s mind was still functioning even though his body was shutting down. All he could do to recognize his men’s presence was to raise an index finger and flash his brown and blue eyes toward them. He knew that they saw the actions and that they understood. He realized too that, despite everything that he had put them through, they still loved him.

  ≈

  The ninth night of Alexander’s illness, all of the king’s Royal Bodyguards went to Babylon’s Bel-Marduk Temple and started a prayer vigil. Many wanted to bring Alexander to the temple to receive the god’s personal blessing. However, the temple priests intervened and informed the Bodyguards that Bel-Marduk forbade it. The supreme god himself had let them know that Alexander was too ill to be moved.

  Early in the morning of the tenth day, Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Leonnatus, Lysimachus, and Peucestas went to Alexander’s bedchamber. They joined Philip, his physician, who had not left his side for three days.

  Alexander was either asleep or in a coma, so they waited. In the middle of the night, the king awakened and looked over the group. A pathetic, half-smile appeared on his face, and he whispered a question “What do you want?”

  Ptolemy, with tears in his eyes, bent over his half-brother and said, “Who should inherit your kingdom, Alexander?” Everyone in the group moved closer to Alexander to hear his answer.

  Alexander attempted a deep breath but could not reach it and coughed harshly. Then he made a second, successful attempt at air and was able to speak, just above an inaudible whisper. “It must go ... It must go ... to the strongest. There will be a great funeral contest over me.”

  The king of the greatest empire that the world had ever seen then attempted another breath, but the effort failed. Each man there heard his death rattle, then silence. Alexander of Macedon was dead. It was fourteen years after he became king.

  ≈

  Later, a Chaldaean priest-astrologer wrote a terse entry in the Astronomical Diary for the Persian year 3337. It read, ‘29 Aiaru The king died. Clouds were in the sky.’

  ARISTOTLE’S REFLECTIONS FROM ASPIRIT WORLD

  4

  Alexander and Hephaestion had to be eliminated. My involvement in their deaths, albeit only at the beginning of the plot, was a near refutation of my life’s work. Yet, given the chance to do it again, I would. My time in this spirit world has taught me that.

  I now understand the excesses of Alexander’s megalomania. He never could have ruled a world empire. Nevertheless, that was his ultimate dream. That vision obsessed him during his tempestuous life. Macedonia’s strong wine would have killed him anyway.

  My action saved countless humans from losing their individual and national identities. Now, after centuries here, I know that I was wrong in thinking that Persians and other eastern peoples were inherently slaves and barbarians. Alexander’s many letters to me during the campaign, especially the last ones, convinced me that theirs was an advanced civilization. He should never have destroyed them. Greeks could have learned much from their high culture.

  Within weeks of Alexander’s death, Athens was in a near state of rebellion. Demades made a speech and doubted the authenticity of Alexander’s death report. “Alexander dead?” he shout
ed. “Impossible; the whole world would stink of his corpse.” It was a pithy, rhetorical remark that I know that Demosthenes wished he had made.

  Alexander’s generals lingered in Babylon and the nearby territories. Each busied himself, trying to carve up major pieces of his empire. All of them wanted to become a king in their own right. Their contests developed into a bloody mess before a single ruler emerged.

  Olympias fled to her homeland in Epirus. Her grief over Alexander’s death was only exceeded by her determination to strike back at those who killed him. I doubt that she ever knew of my involvement in her son’s elimination. She wanted to become the first woman to rule Macedon. I find it curious that she outlived both Philip and Alexander. It was only the gods themselves that saved the Greek world from the vindictive fury of Olympias.

  The year after Alexander’s death saw a vast and expensive funeral being held and a stunning funeral monument begun. During that last year of my life, I learned that it resembled an enormous, royal wagon, complete with statues and columns. His generals intended to bring it to Pella, where a pyramid greater than Cheops’ was planned. However, Ptolemy stole the body and fled with it to Alexandria in Egypt. As you know, he and his line formed a great dynasty there.

  Roxanne delivered a male baby after Alexander’s death. She named him Alexander the Fourth. The infant was Alexander’s only legitimate heir. The child’s name alone was laden with dynastic ambition.

  Antipater ordered the former queen and her infant to return to Pella. They remained safe there for a while. That changed, as the so-called successor-generals divided Alexander’s empire.

  Athens’ leaders saw me, understandably so, as a Macedonian sympathizer, one who could not be trusted by real Greeks. My life was in danger and I had to leave my beloved Lyceum. I went to my family estate on the island of Euboea to begin my exile. It was there that I died of old age and being too involved in the life of one of the most enigmatic men who ever lived.

  ≈

  Yet, I feel that I acted with honor during Alexander’s short life. Had he followed my teaching, everything would have turned out differently. Immediately after my death, I doubted that he would ever be anything more than a footnote in history. I naively thought that it was great ideas, concepts, and scientific principles, endeavors in which I made serious contributions, that would form the basis of altering civilization, giving humans a chance to improve their condition. Observing your history over the millennia, I know now that I was wrong.

  Alexander is not here, nor has he ever been here. I cannot understand why I ended up here and he did not. I often fear, if there is an afterlife beyond this spirit world, that I will meet Alexander there. I will give that possibility some thought. I have always been good at thought.

  CHARACTERS, GEOGRAPHIC NAMES, LOCATIONS AND UNIQUE TERMS USED IN

  ALEXANDER THE KING

  Abuleites: Persian satrap of Susa

  Abydos: Persian seaport near the Hellespont

  Achaemenid: Royal line of Persian Great Kings

  Aegae: The ancient, spiritual capitol of Macedonian kings.

  Aeorpus: Provincial ruler of Lyncestis in Macedonia

  Aetolia: A Greek city-state

  Agatho: Alexander’s phalanx commander; left behind in Media

  Agis: King of Sparta; planned revolt against Alexande

  Agrianians: Soldiers from a province in northwest Macedonia. Their king, Langarus, led them. He gave Alexander “some of his toughest and most reliable” light-armed fighters.

  Ahura Mazda: The Persian supreme god.

  Akitu: Persian new year’s festival

  Altious: Olympias’ priest conspirator and accomplice

  Amanic: The Gate (pass) where Great King Darius descended on Alexander at Issus

  Ammon Ra: The supreme god of Egypt. Ammon’s oracle resided at the desert oasis in Siwah.

  Amphipolis: City in Thrace, ten days march east of Pella

  Amyntas: Phalanx commander in Alexander’s army

  Anaxarchus: Advisor/propagandist to Alexander; rival of Callisthenes

  Antipater: Regent of Macedon during Alexander’s conquests; quarreled with Olympias

  Apadana: The Persian Great King’s central audience chamber in the Royal Palace at Persepolis (Parsa)

  Arbela: Ancient Persian city northwest of Babylon; near the battle site of Gaugamela

  Archon: A high Athenian government official elected annually

  Ariobarzanes: Persian satrap who opposed Alexander

  Aristander: Alexander’s seer during the Persian expedition

  Arrhabaeus: Alexander’s commander of Lancers and Paeonians

  Arridaeus (Philip Arridaeus): Half-brother of Alexander; made mentally defective in childhood by Olympias

  Aristotle: Scientist, philosopher, teacher; Founded the Mieza School in northwest Macedonia where Alexander and the Royal Pages were taught. Later founded the famous Lyceum in Athens.

  Arses: Young son of Persian Great King Artaxerxes Ochus; he was poisoned by Bagoas, the Grand Vizier

  Artabazus: Father of Barsine; former Persian satrap of Phrygia; initially fought with Darius; a later ally and supporter of Alexander

  Artaxerxes Ochus: Persian Great King during most of Philip’s reign; poisoned by Bagoas.

  Attalus: One of Philip’s leading generals; killed by Alexander’s orders at the start of his reign

  andrapodismos: Total elimination of a polis through razing and selling its inhabitants into lifelong slavery.

  Bactria: Persian province governed by Bessus

  Bagoas: Grand Vizier of Persian Great King Artaxerxes Ochus also

  Bagoas: Beautiful boy-eunuch; lover of both Great King Darius and Alexander

  Barsine: Daughter of Artabazus; wife of Memnon; Alexander’s first female lover

  also

  Barsine/Stateira: Daughter of Persian Great King Darius and Stateira. Her birth name was Barsine. Alexander renamed her Stateira when he married her during the mass marriages in Susa.

  Bel Marduk: Local Babylonian god (called Marduk by pious Babylonian Persians)

  Bessus: Persian provincial governor of Bactria; killed Darius and led the remnants of Persia’s army

  Boeotia: City state in central Greece

  Bosporus: A strait or narrow sea connecting two seas or connecting a lake and a sea

  Bucephalas: Alexander’s famous horse

  Byblos: Persian city

  Boule: The council of 500 that directed Athens’ government

  Cadmea: Thebes’ high citadel

  Calas: Alexander’s officer; son of Harpalus

  Callisthenes: Nephew of Aristotle; scholar who accompanied Alexander on much of his Persian invasion.

  Callixeina: Athenian courtesan who tried (unsuccessfully) to initiate Alexander sexually

  Caranus: Baby son of Cleopatra-Eurydice and Philip II

  Cassander: Son of Antipater

  Cebalinus: Young man who revealed the possible plot against Alexander’s life

  Chaeronea: Site of Philip’s great victory over the allied Greeks in south central Greece

  Chaldaeans: Babylonian priests versed in astrology and sooth saying

  Cheops: Greek term for the Great Pyramid on the Giza plateau. Egyptians called it Khufu’s Pyramid

  Chios: Island off the Persian coast of Lydia

  chiton: A tunic worn next to the skin by both sexes

  Cilicia: The region south of Cappadocia; today, called the Turkish Riviera.

  Cleander: Parmenio’s second in command; murdered Parmenio

  Cleopatra-Eurydice: Last wife of Philip II; mother of Europa and Caranus

  Clearchus: Officer who commanded the Agrianian archers

  Codomannus: Name of Darius before he became Great King of Persia

  Coenus: Parmenio’s son-in-law; commanded 1/6 of the phalanx battalion on the extreme right.

  Craterus: Commanded a phalanx battalion; appointed a “friend of the king”; hated Hephaestion

  Crenides: Gri
my mining settlement near Mount Pangaeus

  Cunaxa: Persian city on the Euphrates, sixty miles northwest of Babylon.

  cuirass: body armor made of metal plates

  Daric: Persian coin of the realm

  Deinocrates: Architect who laid out Alexandria in Egypt

  Demosthenes: Athenian orator and legislator; hated adversary of Philip II and Alexander

  Didyma: Site of Apollo’s oracle near Miletus in Persian Caria.

  Dodona: Site of oracle in Epirus. The Dodona oracle was revered by Olympias and Alexander

  Drangiana: Persian province, west of the Hindu Kush mountains.

  Dymnus: A young plotter in the plot to murder Alexander

  Ecbatana: The Persian Great King’s summer capitol in Media

  Elis: A Greek city-state.

  Erigyius: One of Alexander’s oldest and most trusted friends; officer and inner circle member

  Esagila: The temple complex in the center of Babylon

  Euboea: Greek island north of Athens

  Eubulus: Athens’ minister of finance

  Eumenes: Alexander’s personal secretary and propagandist

  Europa: Daughter of Cleopatra-Eurydice and Philip II

  Gaugamela: Site of the third and last major battle between the Macedonians/Greeks and the Persians

  Gedrosian: The great desert across the southern tip of modern-day Afghanistan

  Gordium: Ancient Persian city and location of the famous Gordian Knot

  Granicus River: Site of Alexander’s first victory over the Persians in modern day Turkey

  Halicarnassus: Persian seaport city in Caria

  Halys: River in Persia that flows north into the Black Sea; near modern-day Ankara, Turkey

  Harpalus: Alexander’s treasurer and boyhood friend

  Hecataeus: Macedonian officer & early supporter of Alexander

  Heliopolis: City in northern Egypt

  Hellespont: The narrow strait between Thrace and Persia (modern day Europe and Turkey). An invading army had to enter Persia across this historic sea passage.