Hephaestion’s Duties

By alexsrighthand

 

This is a table from Jeanne Reame’s PhD Thesis “Hephaestion Amyntoros: eminence grise at the court of Alexander.  It lists all of Hephaestion’s mentions in the sources and catagorizes what that job is.  As you can see, Hephaestion was continually trusted with important assignments and excelled at logistics and diplomacy.

Hephaestion website, yes or no?

Ok, first a poll.  I am thinking of starting a website for Hephaestion similar to my friend Malcolm’s www.secondachilles.com which focuses on Alexander.  My question is would anyone be interested in such a site?  It would feature info on Hephaestion, pictures of artifacts connected with him, links to sources, and such.  Please comment on this below and tell me yes or no.

As far as the Hephaestion book project goes, it is coming along slowly.  Some health problems have unfortunately kept me from working as quickly as I would like, but hopefully, those are reaching a point where they will no longer cause delays.  I am currently working on Mary Renault’s The Nature of Alexander to see how she presents Hephaestion.  I have read this before and remember that her version is sympathetic with mine, but I wanted to read again in a more conscious and critical manner.

My other main research interest is how clothing is used as non-verbal communication and to establish identity.  After a Skype conversation with a fellow Alexander scholar this weekend, I have a renewed interest in exploring how Alexander’s change in wardrobe so drastically changed his men’s opinion of him and his “Greekness”.  Look for that in the future, and if you have any ideas, by all means, leave those in the comments too.