Hephaestion ( Hēphaistíōn; c. 356 BC – 324 BC), son of Amyntor, was an ancient Macedonian nobleman of probable "Attic or Ionian extraction"Reames 2020 p. 12. and a general in the army of Alexander the Great. He was "by far the dearest of all the king's friends; he had been brought up with Alexander and shared all his secrets."Curtius 3.12.16 This relationship lasted throughout their lives, and was compared, by others as well as themselves, to that of Achilles and Patroclus.
His military career was distinguished. A member of Alexander the Great's personal bodyguard, he went on to command the Companion cavalry and was entrusted with many other tasks throughout Alexander's ten-year campaign in Asia, including diplomatic missions, the bridging of major rivers, sieges and the foundation of new settlements. Besides being a soldier, engineer and diplomat, he corresponded with the philosophers Aristotle and Xenocrates and actively supported Alexander in his attempts to integrate the Greeks and Persians. Alexander formally made him his second-in-command when he appointed him Chiliarch of the empire. Alexander also made him part of the royal family when he gave him as his bride Drypetis, sister to his own second wife Stateira, both daughters of Darius III of Persia.
When Hephaestion died suddenly at Ecbatana around age thirty-two, Alexander was overwhelmed with grief. He petitioned the oracle at Siwa to grant Hephaestion divine status and thus Hephaestion was honoured as a Divine Hero. Hephaestion was cremated and his ashes taken to Babylon. At the time of his own death a mere eight months later, Alexander was still planning lasting monuments to Hephaestion's memory.
Youth and education
Hephaestion's exact age is not known. No concise biography has ever been written about him, likely stemming from the fact that he died before Alexander and none of those among Alexander's companions who survived him would have had a need to promote someone other than themselves. Many scholars cite Hephaestion's age as being similar to Alexander's so it is fair to assume that he was born about 356 BC. He is said to have become a page in 343 BC, a role common to adolescent boys of the aristocratic class in Macedon.Heckel 2006 p.133 As a member of the court, he may have met Alexander around this time.
The only surviving anecdote from Hephaestion's youth comes courtesy of the Alexander Romance. According to this tale, "one day when Alexander was 15 years old ... sailing with Hephaestion, his friend, he easily reached Pisa ... and he went off to stroll with Hephaestion."Chugg 2006 p. 67 That Alexander's exact age is given provides another clue to Hephaestion's upbringing because at fifteen Alexander and his companions were at Mieza studying under Aristotle.Plutarch 7 Hephaestion has never been named among those who attended the lectures at Mieza, but his close friendship with Alexander at that age suggests strongly that he was numbered among them. More telling is Hephaestion's name being found in a catalogue of Aristotle's correspondences.Diogenes Laërtius, Aristotle 5 The letters themselves have been lost, but for them to have found their way into an official catalogue, their content must have been of some significance. It implies that Hephaestion received a good education and shows that Aristotle was impressed enough by his alleged pupil to send letters throughout Alexander's expanding empire to converse with him.
A few years after the lectures at Mieza, Hephaestion's presence was notably absent when several of Alexander's close friends were exiled as a result of the Pixodarus affair. Among those exiled by Philip II after Alexander's failed attempt to offer himself as groom to the Carian princess were Ptolemy, Nearchus, Harpalus, Erigyius and Laomedon.Plutarch 10 The reason for Hephaestion's absence from this list could be the fact that all of the exiled men were older friends of Alexander, Erigyius himself roughly 24 years older than the prince.Heckel 2006 p. 119 Hephaestion was a contemporary of Alexander and it is likely that his influence might have been seen as less of a threat than these more mature companions. Whatever Hephaestion's opinion had been on the whole affair, like many of Alexander's other childhood companions he was not exiled in its aftermath.
Career Sharing Alexander's upbringing, Hephaestion would have learned to fight and to ride well from an early age. His first taste of military action was probably the campaign against the Thracians while Alexander was regent, followed by Philip II's Danube campaign (342 BC) and the battle of Chaeronea (338 BC) while he was still in his teens. His name is not mentioned in lists of high-ranking officers during the early battles of Alexander's Danube campaign (335 BC) or the invasion of Persia. Nor are the names of Alexander's other close friends and contemporaries listed, suggesting that their promotions, when they achieved them, were earned by merit.
Wars in Persia
Hephaestion's career was never solely a military one. Right from the start he was also engaged in special missions, sometimes diplomatic, sometimes technical. The first mention of his career in the sources is a diplomatic mission of some importance. After the battle of Issus (333 BC) when Alexander was proceeding south down the Phoenician coast and had received the capitulation of Sidon, Hephaestion was "authorised to appoint to the throne the Sidonian he considered most deserving of that high office".Curtius 4.1.16 Hephaestion took local advice and chose a man distantly related to the royal family, but whose honesty had reduced him to working as a gardener. The man, Abdalonymus, had a successful royal career, fully justifying Hephaestion's choice.
After the siege of Tyre (332 BC) Alexander entrusted his fleet to Hephaestion, who had orders to skirt the coast and head for Gaza, their next objective, while Alexander himself led the army overland.Curtius 4.5.10 Hephaestion's task was not an easy one, for this was not the Athenian fleet with which Alexander had started and had earlier disbanded, but a motley collection of semi-reluctant allies of many nationalities who would need holding together with patience and strength. Furthermore, on arrival at Gaza the cargo of siege engines had to be unloaded, transported across difficult terrain and reassembled.
Plutarch, while writing about Alexander's correspondence, reveals an occasion when Hephaestion was away on business and Alexander wrote to him. The subject matter suggests that this took place while they were in Egypt. What business Hephaestion was attending to we do not know, but Andrew ChuggChugg 2006, p.93 has suggested that it was concerned either with his command of the fleet or Athenian diplomacy. He quotes sources which suggest that Hephaestion had been approached by Aristion of Athens to effect a reconciliation between Alexander and Demosthenes and, certainly, Athens' inaction during the revolt of the Spartan king Agis would seem to support this idea. As Chugg says, "If he did persuade Alexander to reach an accommodation with Demosthenes at this critical juncture, as would seem likely from the circumstances, then he was significantly responsible for saving the situation for Macedon in Greece by preventing the revolt of Agis spreading to Athens and her allies."
It is likely, though not certain, that it was Hephaestion who led the advance army from Egypt to bridge the Euphrates river. Darius of Persia sent Mazaeus to hold the opposite bank while the bridging work was in progress. This Mazaeus was the commander who threw away what looked like certain victory on the Persian right at the battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) and later became Alexander's governor of Babylon. Robin Lane Fox has suggested that a conversation with Hephaestion may have won Mazaeus over: "It is conceivable that the battle of Gaugamela was partly won on the banks of the Euphrates and that Mazaeus' reinstatement was less a sign of magnanimity than of a prearranged reward."Lane Fox 1973, p.227
It is at Gaugamela that mention is first made of Hephaestion's rank. He is called the "commander of the bodyguards (somatophylakes)".Diodorus 17.61.3 This is not the Royal Squadron, whose duties also included guarding the king in battle and which was at that time commanded by Cleitus—a man of the older generation—but a small group of close companions specifically designated to fight alongside the king. Hephaestion was certainly in the thick of things with Alexander, for Arrian tells us he was wounded and Curtius specifically mentions that it was a spear wound in the arm.Arrian 3.15.2Curtius 4.16.32
After Gaugamela there is the first indication that Alexander intended reconciliation with the Persians and that Hephaestion supported him in this unpopular policy. One evening in Babylon Alexander noticed a high-born woman obliged to dance as part of the entertainment. Curtius explains: "The following day, he (Alexander) instructed Hephaestion to have all the prisoners brought to the royal quarters and there he verified the lineage of each of them."Curtius 6.2.9 Alexander had realized that people from noble families were being treated with little dignity and wanted to do something about it. That he chose Hephaestion to help him shows that he could rely on Hephaestion's tact and sympathy. Yet Alexander could also rely on Hephaestion for firmness and resolve. When his policies had led to a plot against his life, the possible involvement of a senior officer, Philotas, caused much concern. It was Hephaestion, along with Craterus and Coenus, who insisted on, and actually carried out, the customary torture.Curtius 6.11.10
After the execution of Philotas (330 BC), Hephaestion was appointed joint commander—with Cleitus—of the Companion cavalry, Philotas' former position. This dual appointment was a way of satisfying two divergent shades of opinion now hardening throughout the army: one, like Hephaestion, broadly supportive of Alexander's policy of integration, and the other, that of Philip's older veterans in particular, whose implacable resentment of Persian ways was well represented by Cleitus.Arrian 3.27.4 The cavalry prospered under this command, showing itself equal to learning new tactics necessary against Scythian nomads and to counter-insurgency measures such as those deployed in the spring of 328 BC. The army set out from Balkh in five columns to spread through the valleys between the Oxus and Tanais rivers to pacify Sogdiana. Hephaestion commanded one of the columns and, after arriving at Marakanda, he set out again to establish settlements in the region.Arrian 4.16.43 and 4.16.45
Expedition into India
In spring 327 BC the army headed into India and Alexander divided his forces. He led his section north into the Swat Valley, while Hephaestion and Perdiccas took a sizeable contingent through the Khyber Pass. Hephaestion's orders were to "take over either by force or agreement all places on their march and upon reaching the Indus to make suitable preparations for crossing".Arrian 4.22.58 They were in unknown territory, whose political and geographical landscapes were unfamiliar, and Hephaestion would have had to make decisions on the spot and act accordingly. He reached the Indus with the land behind him conquered, including the successful siege of Peuceolatis, which took thirty days, and proceeded to organize the construction of boats for the crossing.Arrian 4.23.59
Alexander often had to divide his forces and command was given to a variety of senior officers on different occasions. For example, a few weeks before this mission of Hephaestion's, Craterus had been sent with a large force to subdue the last two remaining Bactrian rebels.Arrian 4.22.54 It seems that Hephaestion was chosen when the objectives were far from clear-cut, and Alexander needed a commander on whom he could rely to do what he would have done himself without needing instructions.