Alexander the Great and his “closest friend” Hephaestion had a relationship that lasted throughout their lifetimes. This king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon is said to have loved Homer’s Illiad to a great extent, that he would even sleep with a copy of it beside him, him having a notable admiration for Achilles. Furthermore, the relationship between this pair was compared by others as well as themselves to that of Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander openly embracing the idea of himself as the new Achilles and Hephaestion the new Patroclus. According to Curtius, Alexander is supposed to have admired Hephaestion for his good looks. Historians also admit that the pair was most likely physically intimate at a point. Many officers were supposedly jealous of Hephaestion’s relationship with Alexander the Great.
After the Malian campaign, on their return journey to Babylon, after a night of heavy drinking Hephaestion caught a fever, through the duration of which Alexander would remain by his side, causing a delay in their travels. Then as they began to travel after his recovery, he soon relapsed and died. Alexander the Great spent two days grieving over Hephaestion until he was dragged away, not only cutting off his own hair, but ordering the manes and tails of all the horses shorn off as well.
Glaucius, the doctor who treated Hephaestion, was executed for his inability to keep his patient alive. He spent a conservative estimate of 1.5 billion dollars on Hephaestion’s funeral and extinguished a light only reserved to signify the death of the king. (i.e. himself, Alexander the Great).
He was also said to have petitioned the Oracle of Siwa to have Hephaestion declared the status of a god, but was denied. Even nine months later, up until his death, he was designing expensive monuments to honour Hephaestion. According to Plutarch, “he had the wretched doctor impaled on a stake and banned playing the pipes and all music in the camp for a considerable period of time, until he received an oracle from Ammon, telling him to worship Hephaestion as a hero and to institute sacrificial rituals in his honour.” All of these serve as proof that the relationship between this pair was not purely platonic, but was also sexual and romantic.
“Hephaestion was the one whom Alexander loved, and for the rest of their lives their relationship remained as intimate as it is now irrecoverable: Alexander was only defeated once, the Cynic philosophers said long after his death, and that was by Hephaestion’s thighs.” (Alexander the Great, pg 56).
Comments