“Phillip of Macedon died when Pithobelos was Archon at Athens. He was succeeded by his son Alexander.’

Every other historian, of antiquity and modernity, focuses on the murder of Phillip, most implicating those closest to Phillip, his estranged wife, Olympias and his son Alexander. This seems to be a natural suspicion born of modern police work. For when a spouse or parent, not involved in criminal activity, are found murdered, the spouse or child is often implicated and convicted. Applying this logic to a royal person of antiquity, is suspect and even foolish. The business of a king in antiquity is every bit as fraught with murderous conspiracy as a mobster of today.

First, the tiny number of family murders in modern police work, are committed by a small number of the worst and most selfish people of creation, creatures of pure consuming decadence, with no heroic aspirations. Indeed, in Antiquity, it was assumed by the Persians [according to Herodotus who has never been proved wrong] the great enemies of Phillip and Alexander, the oppressors of their ancestors, that a son would never slay his father. Only modern police work and cutthroat corporate politics could predispose a person to suspect first the son, because he gained, although he lost. Had Phillip lived, based on Alexander’s aspirations, his son might have circumnavigated Africa, conquered India, contacted Cathay, perhaps even subdued the Celts who had joked upon him that they feared the sky falling more than him, and to have sailed to the Land of the Midnight Sun. All of this, was denied him by the death of his father, leaving but one man to conquer and discover a world.

The first evidence is Arrian’s refusal to even address the death of Phillip as a killing!

The second indication that Arrian is shielding his history from censure is that he focuses almost exclusively on military, civic and religious actions. Except for the discovery of conspiracies among officers who seem to have been influenced by eunuchs, who were the creatures of the bankers that Alexander was frustrating by removing corrupt priests caught looting tombs and temples, Arrian looks away from any hand that might have been moving pawns and capital pieces along the chessboard of Alexander’s frantic life and death.

Finally, at the end of Book 7 after describing Alexander in Book 2 as having courted poisoning, by taking potions prepared for his recovery despite calls from officers warning of such an end, Arrian informs the reader that Alexander’s fate was sealed, that he would die in Babylon.

It occurs that Arrian was himself Archon of Athens during his research, that Demosthenes, the demagogue enemy of Alexander, pardoned twice by Alexander, rose in the shadow of Alexander’s death and is still heralded by a secret society of bankers and enemies of mankind based in Philadelphia, USA, by the number on their sanctum door being the year of Alexander’s death. Additionally, over 180 Alexander romances, working class, common tradition, accounts of Alexander, rose in the wake of his death, marking him as a slain champion of the many folks he supposedly conquered when he liberated them from their oppressive rulers.

Just as Tacitus declined to name the obvious poisoning of his father in law Agricola after his restoration of looted temple treasures, Arrian declines to name Phillip, Langarus, Hephastion or Alexander as murdered in the interest of enemies. Hephastion, Alexander and Agricola were poisoned, obviously, while in the process of restoring looted treasures to temples and tombs.

Hephastion fell ill and died swiftly after he had been instrumental in investigating corrupt governors and priests involved in looting temples, including the tomb of Cyrus. Temple robbing has been proven by excavations to have been supervised by priests before the tombs were sealed. Hephastion and Alexander were reasserting control of mountain tribes and establishing a naval presence on the Caspian Sea, for the purpose of exploration.

His project was born of reading Arrian and Agricola at the same time that Sephyr’s book 1666 pointed out the significance of Alexander’s date of death as being preserved by modern secret societies. Arrian’s oblique aversion to naming conspiracy, to investigating the death of his subject, of which he is apprised to the clearest detail, indicate that he, like Tacitus, feared, if not for his safety, the survival of his work. Below I will quote Arrian’s description of Alexander’s death, which most historians relate to malaria and complications of battle injuries. A minority point the finger at the 3,000 mile distant Aristotle, who would die of poisoning [stomach cancer] the every next year, and who had been Alexander’s close advisor. It is more likely to the modern mind that Aristotle sent hellebore 3,000 miles on request than that a slave of Alexander’s banker enemies in the very city he resided, and had been warned against entering on pain of DEATH! did the obvious, dose him with poison.

Returning from the Caspian to Babylon,

“On his march to Babylon, Alexander, after cross in the Tigress, was met by some wise men of the Chaldeans, who drew him aside and begged him to go no further, because their god, Baal, foretold that if he entered the city at that time, it would prove fatal to him.”

Alexander was extremely pious, practice religious rites multiple times a day, and generally respected the local faith, to include sacrificing to God at Jerusalem.

“Alexander replied, by quoting to him the line of Euripides [who had been patronized by Alexander’s ancestor] ‘Prophets are best who make the truest guess.’”

“My Lord,” said the Chaldeans, “Look not to the west, do not march westward with your army, but turn about and go eastward. But this was not easy for Alexander to do, as the country to the east was impracticable for troops. The truth was that fate was leading him to the spot where it was already written that he should die. Who knows, perhaps it was better for him to make his end while his fame was unimpaired, and the world most grieved by his loss, and before he was overtaken by the ill fortune that at one time or another is the lot of all men… in Alexander’s case, Hephestian’s death was no small calamity.”

He had been returning to Babylon for four projects:

-Outfitting a fleet for the conquest of Arabia, which could make him nothing but friends in Mesopotamia.

-Fixing the canal issues that were long over due, 100 mile down stream.

-Reorganizing the remaining army as integrated Macedonian/Persian units with Macedonian officers. This pissed the Macedonian officers off. Most of the Macedonian soldiers had been pensioned with bonuses.

-Rebuilding the Temple of Baal. This temple was supposed to house a massive Assyrian treasure for financing ongoing maintenance and sacrifice. However, Arrian points out, that the dilapidation of the temple, the low desire on the part of the priests to repair the temple, and also that the priests no longer sacrificed to the god from the temple treasury, suggested that the Chaldeans may well have embezzled, or perhaps coveted continued use of, the temple treasury. One is reminded of Bonaparte at the empty bank vaults of Amsterdam or that Fort Knox has not been inspected by the US President in a half century.

Alexander and Hephastion had no reported health issues, their armies lost no men in exploring the wetlands in the Caspian or Gulf. They were imbibing no more wine than normal. Drinking wine is assumed by many to be a key to Alexander’s death. He was only 33,a decade before severe alcoholics generally face health disasters. They were also on a rest period, with hard campaigning behind them and civic organization ahead. Sudden death from fever by this healthy 33 year old man with a high level of vitality, attended by the best doctors, seems unlikely.

This course marks the beginning of my investigations in The Son of God and the Areid into the ancient struggles of Alexander. It marks the conclusion of this dabbling in the vast web of evil that binds our society and our minds.

Keep in mind, when reading below, that within a decade, the entire genetic line of Phillip, Olympias and Alexander will have been exterminated, to include his brides and child. This is historically unusual in that most kingly lines are preserved as fronts for unnamed functionaries wishing to retain the controls but not the appearance of power.

This reader, suggests here, the backers of the Persian empire, the Chaldeans of Babylon, who had raised Cyrus and let him into their City, did not trust Alexander to turn away from religious and civic corruption, and that he must be compelled to turn east again—as obviously his wanderlust noted, he had not been expected to return—and that their baby-eating god had marked him for death.

Arrian relates a letter to the corrupt governor of Egypt, in which Alexander pardons him of crimes past and future, if he would oversee and maintain shrines. Arrian exhibits shock and disgust at this abuse of kingly duty, coming off as no hero worshiper of Alexander at this crucial juncture. Arrian is not uncritical of his heroic subject.

“Alexanders end was now rapidly approaching…”

Having cited divine Fate, Arrian is now free to mention some details of the final days.

Back in Babylon, while Alexander was busy incorporating Persians into Macedonian units, an act that Macedonian officers disliked, and could serve to make an officer willing to play a part in a plot, a prankster sat on Alexander’s throne, causing the eunuchs to beat themselves in dismay. The prankster was said to be a prisoner under arrest. Even enemies were permitted in the throne room. Alexander thought this might be part of a plot and had the man tortured. The actor claimed to have been “acting on impulse. This served to strengthen the [Chaldean’s] seers forebodings of disaster.”

“A few days later, Alexander was sitting at dinner with his friends and drinking far into the night… when he wished to leave his friends at their drinking and retire to his bedroom, he happened to meet Medius, who at that time was the companion most closely in his confidence, and Medius asked him to come and continue drinking at his own table, adding that the party would be a merry one.”

[Standard histories depict Alexander as the party animal drinking to excess, when he is here turning in first and then diverted, but briefly.]

“The Royal Diaries confirm the fact that he drank with Medias after his first carouse. Then (they continue) he left the table, bathed and went to sleep, after which he supped with Medius and again set to drinking; continuing till late at night. Then once more, he took a bath, ate a little, and went straight to sleep, with the fever already on him.”

Was that two does?

Two more pages describe his ten days long death. For ten days, after that fateful cup, his fever increased each day, and he kept Medius by him. Was he being slowly poisoned by those closest to him? Hephastion, his guardian, was gone. The men of the army suspected a plot by the officers and demanded to see Alexander, a thing they were granted. The suspicions of the soldiers, who had much to lose, of the officers, who had kingdoms to gain, have been set aside by history.

Arrian relates that the accounts of Ptolemy and Aristobulus end there. He does add some suspicions from other primary accounts: “I put them down as such and do not expect them to be believed.” [1, 2, 3]

That was an oblique statement.

I trust Arrian, who pages ago, pointed to the Chaldeans, and does not remind us of them in what amounted to his footnotes below, where the only charges of murder come from distant Greece.

The cup-bearer remained.

Notes

-0. In this final book, 41 minutes into the recording, it is noted that a page is missing.

-1. Aristotle is supposed to have made up the drug smuggled in a mule’s hoof. The motive was the death of Callisthenes, Aristotle’s son, slain for plotting against Alexander with eunuchs.

-2. Cassander, Iollos the cup bearer, and his lover Medius are implicated. Alexander was said by Didorus to have felt a sharp pain on draining the cup, and hurried off to bed. Most historians side with Plutarch [the politically connected Greek priest] denying this, and putting away the idea of poison with it, despite the obvious circumstance.

-3. Those with the most motive to poison Alexander, the Chaldeans, were present in Babylon and had no need to wait for poison out of Greece. The personal hatred of Iollos could have been used by them far easier than by distant Aristotle, who seems to have died by the same means within a year. Historians tell us that Aristotle and Bonaparte both died of stomach cancer. Finally, in my 60th year, the account of Bonaparte’s British doctor, was made public after 200 years, in which the good physician admitted to slowly poisoning his exiled patient on Saint Helena Island.