Alexander the Great left his empire "to the strongest", and his general Ptolemy hijacked his body

Alexander died in Babylon aged 32, on 10 or 11 June 323 BC by a Babylonian astronomical diary. He ruled from Greece to India and left no adult heir. Arrian records that his Companions asked who would get the kingdom. He answered "to the strongest", and said he foresaw a great funeral contest. Diodorus and Curtius say he handed his signet ring to Perdiccas. Perdiccas became regent for two kings: Alexander's half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus and his infant son Alexander IV. Perdiccas planned to bury the body at Aegae, the Macedonian royal burial ground. The officer escorting the funeral cart turned it toward Egypt. Ptolemy, governor of Egypt, met it in Syria in 322 or 321 BC and buried it at Memphis. Holding the body gave Ptolemy a claim to the succession. Perdiccas invaded Egypt in 320 BC. About 2,000 of his men were lost crossing the Nile, and his own officers, including Seleucus, murdered him. The body was moved to a tomb in Alexandria called the Soma. Julius Caesar and Augustus visited it. Caligula took its breastplate. By about 400 AD John Chrysostom wrote that Alexander's own people did not know where it was. In 2026 no tomb has been confirmed after more than 140 searches. Claims since 1995 place it at Siwa, in Egypt's Eastern Desert, or in St Mark's Basilica, Venice.