Alexander the Greatly Traumatised: Was the Irrational Behaviour of Alexander the Great Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

This seminar will present a new interpretation of the mental state of Alexander the Great during his final years. A ‘standard’ interpretation was put forward by E. Badian in 1964, who argued that Alexander’s ‘irrational’ behaviour can be explained as a desire to maintain political power. Badian maintained that Alexander’s actions become gradually more extreme as his desire for absolute power continually met opposition, resulting in increasingly violent retaliation. This paper will present the argument that Alexander was likely suffering some form of psychological trauma, possibly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (‘PTSD’). The evidence that Alexander was displaying behaviour symptomatic of psychological trauma will be examined. It will be shown that Alexander was displaying symptoms of PTSD, such as violent outbursts, increased paranoia, insomnia and alcohol abuse. The seminar also argues that there were a number of factors that can explain Alexander’s increasingly erratic and violent behaviour: (1) his need to remove opposition to his policy of endless warfare; (2) the location of these events in the far east allowed Alexander to act with greater impunity and violence; and (3) his own personality contributed to increasingly violent actions, since he simply could not accept personal criticism. This paper concludes that Alexander’s ‘irrational’ behaviours can be explained by a number of factors, and that it is probable that psychological trauma, such as PTSD, was one of them.