In the beginning pages of a fiction novel the main character claims that while Alexander the Great was dying he crawled to a river in an attempt to make himself seem like a God. His wife though supposedly drag him back from the river forcing him to be a mortal man. Is this just a myth or is there any actual legitimacy to this story.
This story comes from the Alexander Romance, a highly fictionalized collection of Alexander legends that has come down to us from antiquity in addition to the more reliable histories. In the Romance Alexander does indeed crawl toward the Euphrates in an apparent suicide attempt. I have not found any mention in the text of his doing this in the hopes of becoming a God but given all the pseudo-divinity talk that surrounds Alexander I can see how people might draw that conclusion. In any case, his wife Roxanne sees this, stops him from crawling into the river, and helps him back to his bed.
Considering the nature of the Romance it's hard to take anything it says as something of historical record rather than legend. Although this particular story is pretty tame compared to some of the more wild segments of the work it's probably best to treat it as inventive fiction loosely based on historical events. The Romance is certainly an interesting read but it makes for highly questionable history.