Oh What A Time... - #137 Alexander the Great (Part 8)

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

In the Indus Valley, Alexander pushes into modern-day Pakistan and India, defeating warrior queens and kings before his men call time at the edge of the known world. Then, the long road home — a deadly desert march, political purges, and the loss of Hephaestion — sets the stage for Alexander’s final days.If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before (and the entirety of the mini-series right now!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of, oh, what a time early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Welcome to Part 8. Let's get on with the show. Now, nothing was ever the same after the death of Clayt, so after six years on campaign, the Macedonians had almost reached. their limits, and we're prepared to go only so much further, physically and mentally. So returning to what is now Afghanistan, and when you think that he started in Macedon, which is sort of modern-day Greece, he's just gone so far.

Yeah, yeah. Geographically is incredible. The stack of lonely planet guides that he'll be sort of carting around with him in his bag. It's now getting quite heavy. Alexander resolved nevertheless to turn east towards the Himalayas. Wow. And so to what he thought was the great encircling sea that lay just beyond that man range. But the battles fought in eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan and Punjab, were among the hardest of

Alexander's career, and at times he came close to losing, perilously close, in fact, and yet he was still able to produce great feats of strategy and skill, as well as daring do, such as his victory over the hilltop fortress known as Sogdian Rock, so built on the plateau of a mountain, the rock had sheer clips on three sides, and Alexander was told he would need men with wings to capture it. Not so, he said. All I need are volunteers and a small cohort willing to climb up the mountainside. Three hundred men clambering up with tent pegs and flaxen ropes.

Thirty them fell to their death. Thirty. Wow. By the 29th bloke, you think of yourself, I'm not sure I fancy this anymore. Those who remained were able to reach the top of the rock and produce a psychological blow sufficient to cause the defenders to surrender. So among those who had taken shelter on the Sogdian rock

was the woman who was to become Alexander's wife, Ruxana, and the mother of his son and heir, Alexander IV. Theirs was a marriage forged by diplomacy, yeah, since Ruxanahs was the local satraps or local governor. But it was an affair of love too, and the ancient sources agree that this was so. They married by Macedonian rather than Persian rights in 327 BC. So from Alexander's point of view,

this was a sensible movement. But once again, his older Greek and Macedonian officers were concerned. The potential heir to their empire was only to be only half Helene, right? So the potential heir to their empire was to be only half Helene, okay? So this is Bigger. Now, the Indian campaign, more properly the region of the Indus Valley, which comprise the easternmost part of the Persian Empire, was rooted in Alexander's need to finalise his conquest.

I personally would argue, you've done enough, mate. Leave it is what I would say. Terry's had enough, which I once heard shocked it in the pub in Carmarth and during a fight. Terry, leave it, he's had enough, right? Alexander, the world's had enough. Leave it. Enjoy married life.

I'd be saying to him, Alexander, what is this really about? Because it feels like you can never quite have enough. Yeah. I think you probably need therapy. Oh, my. We need to talk about, we need to look at the root causes of this because it feels like you'll never be happy.

What a job for a therapist, Alexander the Great. Do you know what as well? If you're a general after every victory, you must be thinking, well, that's done now. And then he's like, right, one more. Off we go. You're just like, oh God, just go home. I'll just chill out for a bit.

Can we not just enjoy it for a bit? So to avoid a war of attrition, he appealed to the local governors to accept him as king, which several of them did. But it was to be resistance, sort of not least from the warrior, Queen Cleophis who ruled the Asakani people of northwestern

Pakistan near the fable Kaiba Pass and the women she mustered in defence of her territory Now Cleophis was allowed to govern as Alexander's vassal following his surrender but her people weren't so fortunate So those who took up arms against Alexander Were killed regardless of gender

The capital of Masaga was raised As was several of the strong ones belonging to the Asakani including Oros Andeonos Where Alexander once again proved a master of the sea The ancient sources described by the king Hold himself up the final part of the rock face Another feat of psychological warfare

He's psychologically very astute Yeah If you think you're safe on the top of some massive rock And then your opponent scale that rock You'd be like, oh my God These guys are superhuman Absolutely I do not fancy this

Yeah Another feat of psychological warfare Which brought an end to the hilltop city's defence So legend had it that Alexander did to prove himself better than Hercules, who had once failed to capture Onos. So at this point in the story, he seems unstoppable. He's also reached a point, L, clearly where he's willing to, you know, just lose troops. Yeah.

The fact that 30 people fell off the mountain on the way and the attempt to get up, he was just mentioning it a little while ago, and it's still sticking with that plan, shows you that there's a sort of disposability of life. That was probably, you know, that was warfare at the time, you know. Yeah, we're going to look. A couple. Yeah, that's very true. It's like when you buy fruit from a market at the end of a day.

Not all the blueberries are going to be nice. You're going to lose a couple. Now, at this point, he seems unstoppable. Even when he's been slashed just about everyone in his body, he's had bones shattered, he's had dysentery. That's the last thing you need. Disantry. In battle. Yeah.

No, thanks. Other fevers. You'd almost died more times than it would be possible to recount. If you saw me in battle, you'd assume I had dysentery. The way you were fighting. And yet he kept going So he defeated yet another king Poorer to the Battle of Heidespies

In May 326 BC So after that Alexander pushed on into India Wow Until the patience of his men ran out Also Like Adelaire a great historian Has said this a couple of times The Patience of the Men has run out

How do you even express that To the world's greatest warrior? I think you just don't And I think you sort of just Peel away start drugging your feet. As you're going through the countryside, I'm sort of, maybe through some shrubland or a wood,

I'm just very quietly taking a left. Yeah. But I wonder, can you peel away when it's 333 BC and you're on the border of India? What are you peeling away into? Well, anything, because it can't be any worse, can it? You guys, I'm peeling away into a life of self-subsistence on a nice warm hill somewhere.

where I build a shack out of stones and sort of just have a couple of sheep. That's what I'm peeling away to. If you get caught, you know, there's sort of the ramifications of that. It's, oh, I don't know. This is why haircut, shave with my eyebrows, change my dress style. Genuinely, I just, this isn't really a joke. I've completely overhauled my look, and I would sneak off. That is what I do.

Gradro Marx glasses and a little moustache. Who's that guy? Well, I don't know. It's not Tom Crane. You never had a glasses and a moustache. Tom Crane wouldn't wear a baseball cap sightway. He can't be him. Sinner stood up and put the case for the men.

So Alexander wished to carry on to reach the Ganges for the edge of the world is within reach, he said. A mere 600 miles. Imagine being told that. Wow. You've had enough. And your boss is saying, it's 600 miles, lads. Yeah.

Come on. It's the end of the world. You get the sense of all this, that he is trying to reach the end of the world. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And with every country, every place he conquers, he's always looking for the next. You just wonder, where would it have, if he had not died, where would it logically end it? Yeah. Now, to be fair to them, right, so his men, through Sinus said, no, mate, please, no, no, we're staying here, we're not going any further.

For three days, the 30-year-old king sulked in his tent until at last he emerged and saw a series of monuments to the greatness of his empire. and in the autumn of 326 BC began the long march home. To be fair to them, they were exhausted. In that, at least, Sinus was telling the truth. They'd been at war for 10 years. Wow. Marching further into India would have brought them into contact and conflict with the vast Nanda Empire,

which has stretched across northern India to Monde, Bangladesh. And they're equally powerful labour, the Gangoridae with their gigantic war elephants. So it's not easy. You know, Man City have won the Premier League, but now they've got to play Real Madrid, right? It's not easy. There's no easy games in Europe

And let's not forget their squad is about 100,000 people at this point The team talks impossible Yeah and they're all knackered Yeah, because there's a second competition in British football Navigating family matters Can be tough

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Trust learners to help you move forward. Visit learnersfamily.com or give us a call at 1-800-263-5583 today. Now, they cannot have known any more than the later Greek and Roman historians that the Nanda dynasty was deeply unpopular and that Alexander's army might well have been able to topple them. There lies a massive what-if of history. So the dynasty did indeed fall in 321. BC, imagine if he'd carried on.

Wow, that's amazing, isn't it? Anyway, Alexander was not one to give up quite so easily. Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll go home, all right, he said, but you'll have to fight your way back, he said. It was a foolish endeavour, one that very nearly cost Alexander's life. When doing an attack on the Citadel of the Malians, Bondea Moulton, he grew impatient with the progress of the battle and so scramble up the walls on his own. What a netter?

He's off his rocker by this point, isn't he? He's a coke addict. and he jumped into the inner courtyard of the Citadel. So he managed to kill the garrison commander before an arrow pierced his lung and he collapsed on the floor. Oh my God. So Alexander's troops enraged

by the thought that he died in such a stupid, if dramatic way. Rushed the gates and stormed into the courtyard determined to kill everyone inside. So there was a massacre then became inevitable. So when the soldiers found Alexander's body, they realised he was still alive barely and they got him away for immediate medical attention.

The arrow was removed. For days no one was quite, sure if he would survive. When at last he was able to receive them, his senior commander said to him, in Greek, basically, what the fuck were you doing? No way. And not for the last

time. Wow. It's very Hitlerian. You know, he's just a constant gambler making ever more, like crazy bets on himself. But the mad thing is with Alexander, it keeps working. It's crazy.

Yeah. But it feels at this point we've hit a bit of a turning point. So you say to keep working, but clearly meant it's almost like 10 years of relentless warfare has an effect on someone. I had this conversation with, Izzy, my wife last night. We were talking about the kids and I said, I just hope that I bring them up

to be self-confident. Not this self-confidence. I would say that Alexander's dad mum and dad did too good a job of that. That's for 20 years. They're both invading the Citadel on their own. You know, you've got to back yourself.

But that is, that's gone too far, in my opinion. All right. So, Alexander, this is the final chapter of his life. How will it end now? Alexander has just nearly died in India, as we've heard. And many were expecting Alexander. to take a nice easy path home. Guys, do you think he did take that nice, easy path home? Absolutely. I'm sure. I think he got an Uber.

From there, straight back to his door. In a decision that historians still debate, this is bewildering. Alexander decides to make the path home from India as difficult as possible. Rather than returning by sea, which is a nice little cruise, or along established inland roads, He led part of his army across the McRan Desert, one of the most inhospitable terrains on earth. Even small military expeditions avoided it.

Alexander was bringing his army. Oh, come on, mate. So there's supply lines, you know, raiding local places for food is not an option. There is nothing there but baking heat. I'd be so annoyed. I wouldn't say anything, but I'd be so annoyed. The desert, famously the worst place to sort of go on a war. It's, you know, it's horrendous.

Fortunately, some of his forces did take the safer sea route sailing under his Admiral near house from India through the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Tigris River near modern day Alphor in Iraq. The rest of the army travelled overland along proper roads, but Alexander with a smaller detachment, yet he chose the desert. And nobody knows for sure why he did this. I mean, some of the suggestions are that maybe it was a test of endurance. He was basically giving himself a little iron man after having an eye in the lung.

Or maybe revenge on his generals for kind of forcing him to turn back from India. Maybe he had a death wish. Maybe it was a dramatic gesture for history. Whatever the reason, inevitably. Many of his men died before reaching the port of what is near modern day Minab in late 325 BC. That idea of a death wish is interesting. It does feel like there's an element of that there, doesn't there? Scaling of the wall, the sort of choosing to fight and besiege places that he doesn't need to anymore.

It feels like there is an element of that creeping in, doesn't it? You're certainly not scared of death. Yeah, yeah. But it feels to me that he's embracing it, or at least trying to see how close he can get to. That's what it seems to me. The idea of going across the desert for no other... That feels deep down, there's something that's rooted in that, really.

It's interesting in antiquity, because I feel like their relationship with death is so different because especially someone like Alexander, who's had loads of battles at this point. I mean, he's killed loads of people. He's around death all the time. So maybe he just doesn't have the same fear of it. Yeah.

someone today would. It's a bit like my cat's bringing a lot of dead mice. You eventually just get on with it. The first time it happened, it was horrific. And then you're like, yeah,

whatever, it's another dead mouse. So, do you tidy it up or do you sort of like walking to step over it? No, I'm like, I'm like Alexander the Great. I make my kids walk through them. No, they eventually get tidied up. Yeah. Yeah.

You're giving them each, very touching burial, don't you? You say a few words, you sing a few hymns. Eventually, Alexander gets back in Persia. He's lost many men in the desert. When he gets back, he's not greeted with celebration. In fact, there's lots of disturbing reports. Governors and officials that had been appointed in his absence were accused of corruption,

temple robbery, tyrannical rule. So, Alexander, we know his personality by now. He's not going to react with understanding. He's going to be swift, and he's going to be. ruthless. Mercenaries were dismissed, governors were arrested, many of the governor's supporters were executed, some historians refer to this purge as a reign of terror. No one was safe from suspicion. Cleander, one of the implicated governors, had once been the second in command under the general Parmenion and was also the brother of Cines, the officer who had famously persuaded

Alexander to stop the campaign in India. Cines had died soon after that argument. under what some found to be suspicious circumstances. If Cleander resented the king, now was not the time to show it. In this dangerous political climate, Alexander moved first. As one historian puts it, having seized the commanders, he had reason to fear. Alexander prepared his blows well, and when he struck, he struck decisively. Just don't get on the wrong side of him, ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not good. Yeah. I also like the fact that this is described as the reign of terror, as opposed to all the blissful calm stuff that's happened for the 10 years prior to that. So what was that then? I also like the idea that someone's like, no, no, no, it's all right.

I can talk some sense into him. Yeah? Can you? You want to watch this. Yeah. I mean, it speaks volumes, isn't it? This is an era of his life that people describe as a reign of terror.

You're right, compared to everything that's come before. From Carmania, Alexander continued his journey to Sousa by way of Persopolis, re-establishing his royal court in early 324 BC. There he staged a grand political gesture, a mass wedding ceremony. Imagine this. 80 of his Macedonian and Greek officers married Persian noble women in a symbolic effort to unite his empire's two cultures. Right. Now then.

Wow. I got married last year. and we had two weddings we had a little one in Wales for the family and then a big party in London organising two weddings was horrible organising 80 weddings when he'd had an arrow in the lung

no he either wasn't doing very much organising thus prompting the kind of arguments that me and Izzy had because she did more than I did or the guy's absolutely mad if he's willing to take on that admin in all that pain as well having marched through a desert

the guy's got a screw loose What worries me is The speeches must have been terminable If there's 80 people getting married Let's say I went to a wedding this week Where there were seven speeches And that was just for one bride one groom

If there's 80 there Then you're looking at a thousand speeches Do you know what I think though I reckon it's got to be like a big award ceremony Yeah like the Oscars Graduation that sort of thing Yeah yeah it's listen we clap at the end No one gets an individual speech

Wallop in and then everyone to the bar. We're going to be in the bar by 8pm late. The orchestra songs start rising after 30 seconds. Next. Does anyone know why any of these 80 couples should not get married? Yeah. Oh my gosh, the admin. 40 hands are going up, yeah. I wonder if having one big party?

Yeah, I guess it's one big party. This is going to be chaos. Yeah. Barbe will be massive. And get this. So it's just not only the kind of top Greek generals that are getting married. Alexander himself is getting married. as well to Stateria

who is the daughter of Darius the third No way She's got to have mixed feelings on the day Although El, he didn't kill Darius Did he? And he actually gave Darius respectful burial That maybe that's what's

Given this a fighting chance Yeah fair enough So he married Stateria Who's the daughter of Darius The Third Is a political union that deeply upset His first wife, Roxana who came from a less prestigious background.

At the same event, Alexander's having another wedding, too, to a second Persian princess, Parasatis, who's the daughter of the earlier Persian king, Artaxercese the third. So he's having a double wedding. There's 80 weddings, and he's having a double one,

and his wife's there, too. Is he trying to conceal the wedding to the other bride, like the god of... Like Mrs. Doubtfire, he's running between the two. He's actually running from one end of the church to the other and trying to conceal the fact he's married two people at once. How's that working?

Or are they completely, are they both coming down the aisle at once? How's it working? I'm generally intrigued by this. Do you think you do one after the other? Do you have a little break in between? Yeah. I just, yeah. Wow.

And also, I'd be interested to hear, well, Daris III couldn't deliver the father and the bride speeches. But what the speeches say? Like, great to have another one in the squad. These dynastic marriages followed long standards. Persian royal tradition which was that conquerors would marry into the families of the rulers they had overthrown. Interesting. Makes Christmas awkward, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But this attempt at dynastic unity didn't last. After Alexander's death the following year, Roxana had both

Tatar and Parisattis killed. Oh, dear. Yeah. Roxanne really wanted to brutally assert her position and make sure that her unborn son's future claim was safe. So it's a happy day here as that the double marriage to Alexander, but of course it's actually quite dangerous. Great twist. If it turns out that Roxana was the mind behind all of this from the very beginning. Alexander is actually quite a chill guy. Okay, so in the summer of 324 BC, Alexander travelled to Ekbatana, where he had earlier stored much of the royal treasury. There were Games. Festivals, lavish feasting to celebrate his victories. What could go wrong? Yeah. They loved a games for him, but that was really a thing, wasn't it? When ever he arrives

anywhere, there seems to be a game, that seems to what happened. It's kind of like a sixth birthday, isn't it? Like, there's a magician, there's a bouncy castle. It would be great as long as the standard was high. Yes. Like, if you were turning up everywhere and it was like a school sports day, but with adults and there's kids chucking you know there's grown men throwing bean bags

and stuff you'd be like listen just don't don't bother okay just don't bother why don't we all watch matches

the day that's better than few beers in the pub garden we don't I don't know why we bother

with any of this I don't need just be normal I'm not even into sport I just like fighting in war where have you got

this idea from why are you doing a long gym you're 40 come on but it's quite it's quite adhering in a way

a lot of pressure though when he's coming to to visit it's one thing having a friend you know, vegetarian food for them, whatever. Another thing having to put on a games whenever they come.

All right. When you think of the bidding process, how expensive a games is. Like Barcelona 92, they were still paying it back for years afterwards. You know, yeah, Alexander bloody came into town. That's why the schools are shit. We had to put on Olympic games. Isn't there a thing that Montreal, 1974, they're still paying it off? Wow.

Oh, probably. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Okay, so here we are. It's 324 BC. Hephaustian, Alexander's closest companion, falls seriously ill, either from a fever or from poisoning. Modern historians suggest typhoid. Hephaestian was not only a military leader and the king's most trusted friend, but also many believe his lover. Their relationship is often compared to Achilles and Patroclus, a model of intimate heroism known throughout the ancient world,

and the grief that Alexander displays when Hefastien meets his end was overwhelming. Alexander shaves his head. He silences all music and he ordered the mains and tales of his horses to be cut. Why have the horses got to be brought into it? They're not sort of part of the, they're not also grieving, are they? Sheaves his head. Shaves his head, yeah. Do you know what though?

If it looks bad, far fewer. mirrors. Yeah. So you'd be less, you'd be faced with it less. And you're not going to, you're not going to see yourself in the passing window, the car or anything.

Yeah. You haven't got a sort of, the selfie mode on your, on your camera phone. So if you've shaved your head, it just looks bad, you would just get on with it, wouldn't you?

They'd be probably quite a few sort of still ponds, I imagine, in a garden of like a king's palace. That's the only issue. The only time you might catch your reflection is when you go down to one of those ornate fountains.

And it was not a breezy day. You look down at it and then you realise what you've done. Oh, bullocks. But also, when you've come as close to death as Alexander the Greaters on many, many different occasions, not suiting a shaved head is going to be the least of your problems, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Also, like, if you're grieving,

I guess the traditional, like, image of someone grieving is to get really unkempt. To suddenly shave your head and be almost hairless suggests, you know, you're turning over a new leaf ready to go again. Yeah, it's like sort of people. People do it when, like, boxes do it when they enter a serious training camp. Yeah. It's often a kind of, it's a signifier that you're taking stuff seriously, isn't it, shaving your head? Tell you what actually feels like, if this was his lover, I think if someone's lover dies and then immediately the grieving person gets a snazzy new haircut, to me, that suggests they're moving on quickly.

And they're planning on getting themselves ready for the nightclub. This is the new me. They're shaving their eyebrows. They're sort of tinting their hair. I'm thinking this guy, he's not grieving. They're shaving their horses. Oh, he's ready to go again. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, like if Izzy died and I got orthodontic treatment. Invisaline. I think of friends would be like, yeah, yeah, are you all right, Elle? Grieving by going to the gym loads, buying a brand new suit and getting invisibleine. Yeah, exactly. It's spending a lot of time grieving on the tanning beds, I've noticed. That's easy to me. Yeah, absolutely.

So Alexander begins an elaborate morning ritual. And he once Hefastian declared a god, firstly, as that Emperor Hadrian were laid to do with Antonus, another young companion he lost too soon. Some scholars believe that the castor tomb, the largest burial monument ever discovered in Greece and aligned to the winter solstice, was built in Hefastian's memory.

But, as is often the case, grief gives way to rage. okay I think Oh no what does he do to the horses next well Alexander

grabs Hefastien's physician Glaucus blames him for the death one source even says he burned down a temple of Asclefius the god of healing and a furious rejection

of divine failure so Glaucius is executed the Hepastian's physician and then he begins a brief campaign against Raiders in the surrounding hills, and then after that, Alexander arrives in Babylon in the spring of

323 BC, and he begins planning a new expedition, this time into the Arabian Peninsula. So here he goes again, thinking, right, we need to invade somewhere else. It's been too long. It's an interesting thing that actually, that executing of the doctor, with these positions around these people as such huge power, military leaders, obviously your life is blessed with money, wealth power influence but there's also a risk that comes with that isn't it when these people if you do something which

you know doesn't favour they react badly to then suddenly you're quickly in danger suddenly you're being hauled up and sort of beheaded or what happens to be throughout history there's all these people who are in the inner circles of kings and queens and leaders all this sort of stuff

who have a charmed life until it goes wrong basically throughout history they've also been a lot of dodgy doctors yes yeah are part of the inner circle and then it all starts to go wrong and then the doctor gets the blame if I was a doctor

I would definitely stick to general practice I wouldn't be like a mad celebrity's personal doctor and prescribing them a lot of stuff because then when it goes wrong you end up in court big time yeah absolutely if you fail to sort out

a member of the public's fungal nail infection they don't then have you execute I'll live with that They might write a review somewhere online under the sort of like... Yeah, exactly, yeah. 2.8 rating on Google. But apart from that. Yeah.

I mean, I went to the doctor with my hay fever, and as all he did was prescribe over-the-counter antihistamines. It was a complete waste of my time. That person's still alive, I'm still alive. You're not in the stocks. No. Do you know what as well? I think, you know, that relationship between incredibly famous, powerful person and a doctor,

it often goes wrong, doesn't it? Michael Jackson is the one that seems to... Michael Jackson, yeah. Elvis. I mean, Hitler, when you look at what he was taking, that dynamic is a difficult one through history. I also think what happens is people... You know, Alexander's already claimed that he's the son of God.

Once you feel invincible, if you then become ill and your personal doctor can't fix you, people find it very hard to accept. Yes, yeah, yeah. Because they're like, listen, I'll pay you what it takes. Just give me the bloody tablets that will sort this. Absolutely. So here we are. Alexander's in Babylon. It's the spring of 323 BC. He's planning a new expedition

all the way over to the Arabian Peninsula. His admiral near house has charted parts of the coast on the return from India and Alexander saw the region as the next frontier of his massive empire. The island of Tilos, modern Bahrain, had already been brought into the Hellenic world but much remained unexplored. However, Alexander is still very much in mourning. deep, deep, deep in grief, and he does what he has done so often in the story of Alexander the Great, he gets absolutely rat-assed. He is drinking heavily, really bad. This is what historians wonder.

Did he die from illness, waterborne infection like the one that may have killed Hefastien or from poison? No one's really sure. And some ancient sources even whisper of a conspiracy involving Aristotle himself. Oh, wow. But here's what we do know. So these are the pretty, what I'm about to say is we have decent knowledge about. We know that Alexander died in Babylon on the 10th or 11th of June, 323 BC.

We know he was 32. He had been feverish and unwell for about 10 to 12 days before he died. We know his symptoms were high fever, progressive weakness. He lost his ability to speak and eventually he suffered from paralysis. All we have, though, from the Babylonian sources is this, first line from the astronomical diary that on the 29th, which is the 10th of June, 323 BC, the king died clouds. Yes. And he wasn't even 33 years old. But in terms of what he died of, the most common academic view is his symptoms completely line up with typhoid fever or malaria.

That is a complete match. There is this conspiracy theory that he may have been poisoned. and I mean, there's a huge list of people who've probably felt wronged by Alexander as a judge on this story. But the evidence that counts against him getting poison was the fact that he was ill for so long because typically if you're going to get poisoned it's going to be relatively rapid

and not the long drawn-out evolving symptoms that he suffered from. I like the idea of saying to Alexander the Great point at the map at where there are people who are pissed off at you. And I just hear enough to be enough, To pin, after pin. Bear in mind that you're the greatest worry in the history of the world.

Who do you think might be annoyed? Would it be easier to narrow this down to? Who do you think might not have it out for you? Then we can go from there. Let's discuss it. People of Macedonia fairly on his side, I think. Obviously, close family and friends-ish. Not on my dad's side.

Because I disowned him and claimed I was a son of God. Yeah, sorry about that. Sorry, is it too late to take? any of that best of back, sorry. Wow. That's fascinating. And he's gone, that's it. What's surprising to me is I fully expected it would be a heroic battle for your death.

That's what I thought it would be. He'd be closed around by 12 people and eventually stabbed in the back, you know, having killed 11 of them or whatever. But, you know, it's such a sort of... Yeah, typhoid. It's such a sort of human way of dying, one of a better way of...

It's just like, just an everyday way of dying It's a human way of dying for someone who's done such a superhuman things. Yeah, exactly. Wow. What a way to go. Goodbye, Alexander the Great. RIP. You know, footballers who retire young and you think they were capable of so much more.

George Best, probably the best example. You know, Marco Van Bastel, obviously was ravaged by injury. He'd done all of that by 33. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you talk about, like, what could, imagine what he could have achieved. There's not a lot left. Do you know what I mean? No.

Although it's probably good for the world generally that we avoided the midlife crisis Because goodness only knows where that would have taken us A disgruntled Alexander at 40 Thinking he's wasted his life What the hell is going to happen there So in a way it's probably a blessing So that's it for part eight of Alexander the great he's now dead and from here we will move on to talk about his legacy in parts nine

and ten which are available right now if you are an oh what a time full timer and don't forget you can get bonus episodes as well too every month else just done a brilliant episode on fascism and our book he's just read and there's also your letters extra correspondence episodes we do every month as well so get all of that good stuff you can go to oh what a time dot com and sign up by wondering plus and another slice support the show otherwise we'll see you next week for parts 10. Bye. Bye.

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