moved out plowing through city by city until they made their way back to Susa in 324
BC. In the journey from Susa to Babylon Alexander met with some Chaldean wise men
who told him that their god Bel had told them that for the king to enter the city at this
time would be fatal to him. They urged him not to go westward now but to go eastward
instead. Alexander bypassed Babylon for a while but the sceptic Anaxagoras told the king
to disregard the curse and press through in despite the curse. Anaxagoras was soon put to
death after Alexander learned of his plot to get him to enter Babylon and be killed. While
in Babylon, Alexander developed a strong distrust with his friends and he started drinking
very heavily. Alexander drank to forget himself for two days and then he developed a
raging fever. With this fever he became delirious and thirsty, so he drank more. In the end
he died from this ravaging fever on June 10th 323 BC at the age of thirty-two. The fever
most likely was brought about by strychnine poisoning in the unmixed wine or possibly
by liver failure due to extreme drinking. Nevertheless a great man had died and with him
a legacy for all the world to remember: Alexander the Great – King of the World.13
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Wall Street Journal: Friday, April 9, 1999; front page
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