Promachus of Macedon

Promachos (* 4th century BC, † 324 BC) was a private soldier in the army of Alexander the Great, who died soon after his victory in a drinking contest to alcohol poisoning.

When Alexander the Great in 324 BC who was in the Persian city of Susa on the way back from his Indian campaign, fell ill of belonging to his entourage Indian Gymnosophist Calanus and arbitration by self-immolation on a pyre committed suicide. Alexander celebrated the death of Calanus, as he had asked, with a drinking bout. In reported Chares of Mytilene in his non-preserved, at least ten -volume work on Alexander, but from the Plutarch and Athenaeus drew. Thus, even a drinking contest took place at the feast on the occasion of Calanus ' death, and for the winner of a talent was awarded as a prize. This premium could the Macedonian soldier Promachos einheimsen after he allegedly drank about 13 liters of unmixed wine. The high alcohol consumption caused but after a few days of his death. Also 41 other people who had taken part in the competition should have succumbed to the effects of excessive drinking wine.