Page 56 - All About History - Issue 09-14

Alexander the Great

ALEXANDER’S INJURIES
The warrior king spent his reign at war and
certainly suffered for it…
Stone to head and neck
Scimitar to head Putting down a revolt in Cyropolis in what is
While galloping around at the Battle now Tajikistan (329 BCE), Alexander led his
of the Granicus (334 BCE), Persian soldiers through a dry stream and under the
nobleman Rhoesaces slashed at the walls, where he was struck with a rock and
back of Alexander’s head, splitting concussed in the street fighting.
his helmet in two. Dazed, but not
seriously hurt, Alexander quickly
regained the initiative and speared Catapult to chest
his attacker in the chest.
Receiving an omen that he would
be wounded in the Siege of Gaza
Dart to shoulder (332 BCE), Alexander ventured
While laying siege in too close to the city walls, and a
Pakistan’s Swat Valley missile from a catapult split his
in 327 BCE, Alexander shield, tore through his armour
was struck by a dart. and into his chest. The historian
His armour stopped it Arrian recalled that “the wound
penetrating too deeply was serious and did not easily
into the king’s shoulder, yield to treatment.”
but the Greeks butchered
all their prisoners in
revenge nonetheless.

Above Alexander Cleitus was one of the first to challenge the
the Great’s army
Arrow through lung defeat the Greek king, but he wasn’t the last. In 327 BCE, a plot
During the Greek’s journey home city state of against him was betrayed, and the conspirators –
down the Indus, Alexander lay
siege to a town in the Punjab. Thebes, 335 BCE his own royal pages – stoned to death. Then, later
Scaling the walls himself, the
Indians pushed the ladder back, that year he struck another body blow against his
leaving the king cut off. Taking an traditional supporters. Callisthenes, grand-nephew
arrow in the lung, he fought on Sword to thigh
drenched in blood until he suffered Historians are unclear as to of Alexander’s tutor Aristotle and one of the many
a haemorrhage. Believing their king how it was inflicted and by historians in Alexander’s retinue, had become
dead, the Greeks went berserk and who (one story is that Darius
massacred the townspeople. III himself landed the blow), increasingly critical of his delusions of grandeur,
but clearly an artery wasn’t and taunted him with a line from his beloved Iliad:
hit as the day after the Battle
of Issus (333 BCE), Alexander “A better man than you by far was Patroclus, and
visited the wounded and held a still death did not escape him.” In short – you’re no
“splendid military funeral.”
god, and you’ll die just like the rest of us. Alexander
accused Callisthenes of collusion in the pages’
Arrow to leg
After the capture of Bessus in conspiracy, and had him put to death.
329 BCE, Alexander and his men It was the beginning of the end. Convinced
were attacked by tribesmen near
modern Samarkand in Uzbekistan. Arrow to ankle he was a god, it would be the needs of men that
Pelted with rocks and arrows, one In tribute to his ancestor
shattered the king’s calf bone. Achilles, Alexander was struck would bring the conquests of Alexander to heel.
by an arrow to ankle during the Adamant that they were at the edge of the world
Siege of Massaga (327 BCE),
breaking the bone. The Indian and expecting to see the great sea that the Ancient
fort was then reduced to rubble Greeks believed ringed their continent from which
and its inhabitants massacred.
they could return home, Alexander pushed his
increasingly mutinous army into India. Confronted
with valley after valley of new lands to conquer
beginning to tire not just of this endless war that decided he’d had his fill. The general bristled, and battles to wage, they drove on – winning a
had taken them further and further from home, but turned to Alexander, and told him that he would costly victory against 200 war elephants fielded
Alexander’s increasing pretensions. This monarch be nothing without the accomplishments of Philip, by King Porus on the banks of the Indus River.
from Greece’s barbarian hinterland had begun to and all that he now possessed was earned by the Battered and broken after 22,000 kilometres and
dress in Persian robes, train Persians for the army blood and sacrifice of Macedonians. Alexander, eight years, monsoon season arrived and drenched
and insist on courtiers throwing themselves to more petulant than entirely regal in his fury, the army in water and disease. Rumours also
the ground in the manner of subjects before the threw an apple at the general’s head, called for his reached the camp that India was a bigger than they
Persian king of kings – an affront to the dignity of guards and then for a dagger or spear, but wary of had previously heard, and contained armies even
the Greeks, who took pride in never bowing to their escalation, those present quickly began bustling greater than that of Porus.
monarchs. On top of that, he now wished to be Cleitus from the room and tried to calm their Alexander’s generals, mindful of the fate that
worshipped as a god. monarch. Either Cleitus wasn’t fully removed or had befallen other critics of their king, approached
After one drunken celebration in 328 BCE, this then returned, but having clearly passed the point cautiously and appealed to his nobility. Coenus
discontent found voice when Cleitus the Black, an of no return, continued to vent his spleen, until – one of Alexander’s most trusted commanders
old Macedonian general who had served under Alexander, finally grabbing hold of a javelin, threw – implored him to let them return home to their
Philip II and saved Alexander’s life in battle, it clean through the old warhorse’s heart. families, saying so eloquently, “We have achieved
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