Divine Delusions\n\nAlexander wasn't just confident; he was utterly convinced he was a living demigod. His mother, the terrifying Olympias, allegedly told him his real father was Zeus, who had visited her in the form of a serpent. Young Alexander leaned into this mythology with everything he had. He reportedly slept with a sharp dagger and an annotated copy of Homer's Iliad under his pillow, fully believing he was the literal reincarnation of the great Achilles. He didn't just want to conquer the world; he wanted to ascend to Mount Olympus when he was done.\n\n## Bizarre Behavior\n\nWhile successfully conquering the vast Persian Empire, Alexander adopted some increasingly weird, tyrannical habits that severely alienated his loyal Macedonian troops.\n- He demanded his rugged veteran soldiers perform proskynesis (a custom of blowing kisses and bowing to the ground as if he were a divine being).\n- He named roughly seventy different cities after himself (all called Alexandria, making ancient maps incredibly confusing) and even founded one major city named after his favorite horse (Bucephala).\n- He once threw a javelin straight through his close friend Cleitus the Black during a wild drunken rage, only to spend the next three days weeping uncontrollably over the corpse and refusing to eat.\n\n## A Very Sticky End\n\nAlexander's premature death is perhaps the absolute strangest chapter of his bizarre saga. After collapsing following a massive, multi-day drinking binge in Babylon, he slowly declined and died at the young age of 32. But wait, it gets much weirder! Because his body reportedly didn't begin to decay for six days despite the intense heat, his men believed it officially proved his divinity. Modern doctors, however, strongly suspect he had contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome and was merely deeply paralyzed, meaning the great, undefeated conqueror of the known world was very likely buried alive. Eventually, his corpse was hijacked by his ambitious general Ptolemy and allegedly pickled in a giant vat of honey inside a glowing glass coffin.