Alexander the Great Lost the Only Person He Loved

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Alexander the Great conquered the entire known world from Greece to India. No general, no king and no enemy could stop him. Then you died. He stopped. He ordered the entire empire to cease all celebrations. Ordered the sacred fires of all nearby temples to be extinguished. Ordered the slaughter of a tribe as a sacrifice in your honor. And for 3 days he ate nothing, lying beside your body, saying nothing, seeing no one. A man who had conquered the world was utterly shattered by the death of a single person. You were not the bravest of generals, nor the wisest of strategists, nor the most powerful in the entire empire. But Alexander once said something. He said you were another Alexander. In Greek, this did not mean you were similar. It meant you were the same person. You were 32 when you died.

[00:00:47]Alexander died 8 months after you. No one can say for certain how he died, but everyone who knew him said that after your death, he was no longer the man he had been. You were born in Macedonia.

[00:00:58]Your father, Amentor, was a local nobleman, and your family was well off, enough to provide you with a top tier education. In 343 BC, Alexander's father, Philip II, hired Aristotle to teach his son. The lessons took place at the Temple of the Nymphs in Mza, where Aristotle taught a select group of young nobles. You were among them and so was Alexander. You were about 13 years old listening to the same teacher lecture on philosophy, medicine, rhetoric and biology in the same grove of olive trees. Aristotle was the most arudite man of his time. His classes were not about memorization but about discussion, debate, and pondering questions while walking through the grove. Here, you and Alexander forged a friendship that never wavered over the next 20 years, enduring countless wars and spanning the entire Asian continent. lasting until the day you died. The two of you worshiped Achilles and Petroles, a fact repeatedly mentioned in ancient historical sources, not as an incidental detail, but as a key context for understanding your relationship. Achilles and Petroles are the two most important figures in Homer's epic Ace the Iliad. They fought together in the Trojan War. When Petroles died, Achilles, driven mad by grief, killed Hector, the man who had slain Petroles and then met his own death in sorrow. Alexander sees himself as Achilles, which means he sees you as Petetrois. This analogy is not something to be taken lightly in ancient Greek culture. Petroles was not Achilles subordinate, nor was he merely his follower. He was the other half of his soul, the one for whom Achilles was willing to give up everything. The two of you understood your relationship through this framework when you were 13 and then spent the next 20 years living it out as reality. In 334 BC, Alexander began his eastern campaign and you followed him. This journey lasted 10 years from Macedonia to Egypt, from Egypt to Persia, from Persia to Babylon, and from Babylon to India. You traveled over 30,000 km, leading an army across the entire known world without maps, supply lines, or any modern means of communication. Your rank within the army rose steadily as the campaign progressed, and you eventually became the supreme commander of the Imperial cavalry, leading Alexander's elite companion cavalry, the most vital fighting force in the entire Imperial Army. You were not one to issue orders from a tent. You were on the battlefield at the very front lines of every major campaign. The battle of Gagamela, the battle of the Percipilus, and the campaigns in India. Your name appears in the records of all these battles. Yet the mark you left on history is not the number of battles you fought, but the relationship between you and Alexander.

[00:03:38]A bond that defies description with any single word. There is one incident in Egypt that historians have repeatedly cited. Alexander took you to visit the tombs of Achilles and Petroles, a site near Troy. Alexander laid flowers at Achilles tomb, then looked at you. His meaning required no words. You walked to Petetrois tomb and laid flowers there.

[00:03:58]Alexander was Achilles and you were Petetrois. This was no metaphor. It was the most direct and public declaration of their relationship made before all the generals and their retinues. The historian Aryan later wrote that Alexander praised Achilles as fortunate for he had a friend like Petroas and a chronicler like Homer to record his deeds. You stood right beside him as he spoke. By praising Achilles for having Petetrois, he was saying in front of everyone, "I am fortunate because I have you. Your position within the empire was a unique one. You were not the highest ranking general. That title belonged to different men at different times. You were not the chief strategist. That role belonged to Tommy or Craterus, but you were the only one who could enter Alexander's tent at any time. The only one whose counsel he sought before making a decision, and the only one who could calm him when he was angry. After her defeat, Sisigambis, the mother of the Persian king Darius III, was brought before Alexander. As she entered the tent, she mistook you for him. She knelt before you because you were taller and standing in front of Alexander. She thought you were Alexander. When she realized her mistake, she was terrified, believing she had committed a grave sin.

[00:05:08]But Alexander laughed and said, "It's all right. He is also Alexander." This statement has a double meaning in Greek.

[00:05:15]Literally, it means he also bears the name Alexander. On a deeper level, it implies that we are one and the same.

[00:05:21]There is no difference between kneeling before him and kneeling before me. Shy Gambas later formed a genuine emotional bond with you. She treated you as another son. After your death, she refused to eat and she died a few months later. A Persian queen mother chose to mourn a Macedonian general through a hunger strike because you were the other half of her other son. Alexander was surrounded by a group of generals whose relationships were complex, marked by competition, jealousy, alliances, and betrayal. This is the natural dynamic found at the heart of any power structure. Your position within this ecosystem was unique, for you had no need to compete with anyone. Your status was not earned through military exploits or strategic acumen. It was granted by Alexander himself. No one could take it from you unless Alexander changed his mind, and he never did. But this also means you live in a state of perpetual ambiguity. You are a general but first and foremost you are his man. You are a commander but first and foremost you are his other half. Every achievement you make is attributed to his favor toward you and every decision you make is compared to his. Cretilus is the general whose status is closest to yours. It is said that Alexander once drew a distinction between your relationship and his with Cretilus, saying that Cretilus loved the king while you loved Alexander himself. This remark was both the highest praise and an immense burden. Loving a king is rational, understandable, and safe. Loving a person for who they are in the world of power is dangerous because people die, but a king's legacy does not. In 324 BC, you arrived at Ecatana, modern-day Hamadan in Iran, which was then the summer capital of the Persian Empire.

[00:07:02]Alexander held grand celebrations there, featuring theatrical performances, athletic competitions, and banquetss.

[00:07:09]The entire camp was immersed in an atmosphere of celebration of the conquest. During this time, you fell ill. Historical records are inconsistent regarding the exact nature of your illness. Some say it was typhoid, others a different fabal disease. At first, your condition was not serious. Your physician, Glaucus, believed you were improving. He let his guard down and allowed you to eat a normal meal and drink some wine after your fever had subsided. Then your condition suddenly took a turn for the worse. Glauus sent for Alexander, but by the time Alexander arrived, it was already too late. You had passed away before he could reach you. And so without a battlefield, without an enemy's blade, merely an illness, a meal eaten too soon, and a doctor's misjudgment, you were gone. You were 32 years old when you died.

[00:07:55]Alexander's reaction exceeded everyone's expectations. Not because he was grieving, for they all knew he would grieve, but because the depth and manner of his grief shocked everyone who witnessed it. He lay prostrate over your body until his generals came in and pulled him away. He cut off his own hair, an ancient Greek mourning ritual.

[00:08:13]But he ordered the entire army to do the same. And the mans of every horse in the camp were shorn as well. An army of tens of thousands. Every single person shaved their heads for you. He ordered all sacred fires in the nearby temples to be extinguished. Sacred fires were a sacred presence in ancient Greek culture.

[00:08:30]Extinguishing them was an act reserved for the highest level of funerals.

[00:08:34]Usually only when a king died. You were not a king. Yet he had the sacred flames of the entire known world extinguished for you. He went without food for three days, lying where your body lay. His generals took turns coming in to try to console him, but none succeeded. Then he went to war, not because he had regained his composure, but because he needed action to process what he could not process with words. He attacked the Coaxian tribe, a people in the nearby mountains who had nothing to do with your death. Yet he slaughtered them, calling that massacre a sacrifice in your honor, filling the void you left with human lives. That doctor Glalus, the one who allowed you to eat a normal meal after your fever broke. Alexander had him crucified, not out of anger, but because he needed a scapegoat, and that scapegoat happened to be there. He petitioned for your deification, sending envoys to the oracle at Delelfi to request that you be declared a god. The oracle did not approve of deification, but it did permit hero worship, the highest postumous honor in ancient Greece, a status situated between mortal and divine. He began planning your funeral, the scale of which made everyone privy to the plans gasp in awe.

[00:09:41]He intended to build a funeral p worth 10,000 talents. 10,000 talents, a sum equivalent to several years worth of tax revenue for the entire kingdom of Macedonia at the time, simply for the platform on which your body would be cremated. He was willing to spend that much money. He never lived to see that funeral. In 323 BC, just 8 months after your death, Alexander died in Babylon at the age of 32, the same age as you. He developed a fever after a banquet, and his condition deteriorated rapidly. He died 12 days later. Historians have debated the cause of his death for 2,000 years, poisoning, typhoid, alcoholism, a broken heart. Yet no one has been able to provide an answer that everyone accepts. Before he died, he was unable to speak. When his generals asked whom he would leave the empire to, he pointed his finger into the air and said, "To the strongest." Immediately after his death, the empire began to fracture. His generals fought a civil war for nearly 50 years, carving up the lands he had conquered piece by piece. That empire, which spanned three continents, crumbled into fragments in less than a generation after his death. Some historians say Alexander was the victim of political assassination. Others claim he died of illness. Still others say he had no will to live after you died and his body simply took 8 months to carry out the decision his heart had already made.

[00:11:04]There is no answer to this, but it is a question worth pondering. Your place in history is an awkward one, for you stood too close to the brightest star, so bright that your own light was completely overshadowed. Later historians when writing about Alexander will mention you, but usually only as a footnote to his character, a backdrop for understanding him. Few treat you as an individual in your own right. The battles you fought, the diplomatic affairs you handled, the logistics you managed, and the words you spoke to Alexander on countless nights, words that influenced countless of his decisions. Most of these things were never recorded because the chronicers saw Alexander as the protagonist, and you were merely the person at his side.

[00:11:44]But one thing is certain. Alexander conquered the world. Then you died and then he died. This sequence is no coincidence. It is what happens when a man loses the person who made him who he was. Today in Hamadan, Iran, the very city where you died, there are some ancient ruins, but no markers tell visitors what once happened here. A few museums in Greece hold artifacts related to Alexander's eastern campaigns. Your name occasionally appears on the labels, usually as a footnote to Alexander's story. 2,300 years have passed.

[00:12:16]Alexander's name is recognized everywhere in the world, while yours requires an explanation. You must say, "Alexander the Great's closest confidant." before the other person nods and says, "Oh, that man, you spent your entire life as a modifier to another person's name. Yet, without you, that name might not exist at all, or at least not in the form we know it today."

[00:12:37]Sometimes the most important person in history isn't the one standing in the brightest spotlight, but the one standing beside him. The one who keeps the brightest light burning. You were that person and then you left first and then that light went