Alexander and Hephaestion

Alexander the Great is a meteor that flashed through the darkened skies of history. Young, handsome, driven, and idealistic, he virtually conquered the world, yet like David with Jonathan, he was utterly dependent on the companionship of a friend. Unlike David, Alexander never recovered from the loss of that friend. Alexander and Hephaestion had grown up together, each knew all the secrets of the other.

The two men were the same age. They shared one tent, drank from one cup, and fought in battle side by side. They were inseparable. Hephaestion was taller, thus was sometimes mistaken for Alexander.

On one occasion, when Darius’ queen entered their tent, she bowed before Hephaestion, thinking him Alexander. She was alarmed to discover her error, but the young king simply smiled and said, “Hephaestion is also Alexander,” as if to indicate that the two men were one.

When Hephaestion died, Alexander was broken in spirit. According to historian Will Durant, he broke down in uncontrolled grief. He lay for hours upon the corpse, weeping; he cut off his hair in mourning and for days refused to take food. He sentenced to death the physician who had left the sick youth’s side to attend the public games.

He ordered a gigantic funeral pile to be erected in Hephaestion’s memory, at a cost, we are told, of ten thousand talents [$60,000,000], and sent to inquire of the oracle of Ammon whether it was permitted to worship Hephaestion as a god. In his next campaign a whole tribe was slain, at his orders, as a sacrifice to Hephaestion’s ghost. . . . Back in Babylon, he abandoned himself more and more to drink. One night, reveling with his officers, he proposed a drinking. . . .

Shortly afterward, at another banquet, Alexander drank heavily again; and cold weather suddenly setting in, he caught a fever, and took to his bed. The fever raged for ten days, during which Alexander continued to give orders to his army and his fleet. On the eleventh day he died, being in the thirty-third year of his age.