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the mysterious death of Alexander

PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:49 am
by Quintus Aurelius Orcus
Salvete

Did anyone saw the documentary on the discovery channel yesterday regarding the mysterious death of Alexander. Well there were two versions that explained the death of Alexander. 1: he got sick and died after battling his disease for 12 days. They even found the disease that could have been responsible for it: the westnile virus. Appearently, right before he got sick, he saw birds picking at eachother and falling dead from the sky. This is regarded as a sign of a impending westnile outbreak among humans. The second version tells about a conspiracy to kill Alexander with a poison. This version says that several people were in on it, including Alexander's doctor, Antipater and his sons and even Aristoteles. This was discarded because it wasn't the way for Macedonians to kill someone, especially a king. They usually killed a person with a sword, not with a poison.
According to the Scotland yard detecive investigating the death, he came to the conclusion that Alexander has died because of his own recklessnes. The poison that was said to be used in the conspiracy theory, was also used as a way to purify the body and treat depression. I don't recall the name of it, but a small dosis could easily kill a human being, Alexander was said to have ordered his doctors to speed up the process by increasing his dosis thus killing himself with it along the way.
valete

Quintus

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:12 pm
by Gnaeus Dionysius Draco
Salve Orce,

Well, ancient medicine was always a blade that cut both ways. It's no coincidence the Greek word 'pharmakon' both means 'poison' and 'medicine'...

Vale bene,
Draco