The disappearance of Alexander the Great, aged 32, remains a mystery, his body having never been found.
Portrait of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC)
King at 19, master of the world at 28… This could sum up the life of Alexander the Great. But his death? His disappearance, at the age of 32, remains a mystery, his body having never been found. It is therefore from studies of texts often several centuries later than his death that historians have tried to reconstruct it.
Risk behavior
Died in Babylon (current Iraq) on June 13, 323 BC. J.-C., Alexandre seems to have been seized with a fever which would have lasted two weeks... and ended up knocking him down. Malaria ? Poisoning? Avian flu type epizootic? This brutal end could above all be explained by a lifestyle that was hectic to say the least.
For Philippe Charlier, forensic anthropologist, "Alexander's risky behavior explains, better than anything, this end in the prime of life" . And it's not just about the wounds of war or the stress of conquest. In the gigantic empire that this conqueror founded, from the shores of the Aegean Sea to those of the Indus and from the banks of the Oxus to the Nile Valley, his body was confronted with many parasites and infectious agents.
"Not to mention sexually transmitted diseases - contracted with his mistresses and lovers - or hemorrhagic fevers , continues the pathologist. Constant geographical displacements, probably chronic alcoholism due to his multiple drinking sessions, could have led to liver and kidney fragility, resulting in multi-organ failure (the organs yielding one after the other, editor's note). Our sanitized world prevents us from considering the reality of 2,300 years ago." In times when even the gods were dying!
This article is from the magazine Sciences et Avenir Hors-série n°194 "Crimes et Châtiments" dated July-August 2018.