Comments | kizzikat: Hephaestion Amyntoros

kizzikat

Hephaestion Amyntoros

Mar 21, 2010 21:54

3. THE PAGES

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Comments 9

fiona13 March 30 2010, 21:31:56 UTC

I thought this was a really well-argued piece, carefully weighing and assessing all the various suggestions that have been made, particularly concerning Hephaistion's origins and family. You make it nice and clear what is known and what is speculation. Myself, I don't believe that the Amyntor who was granted Athenian citizenship in 334 can have been Hephaistion's father. That's because, if he was living in Athens when Hephaistion was born, Hephaistion would have been a metic, denied access to aristocratic pursuits and not in a position to take advantage of sharing Alexander's upbringing, which we know he did. And if Amyntor was not then living in Athens, it doesn't give him a very big window of time in which to gain sufficient influence to have earned the honour ( ... )

kizzikat March 30 2010, 22:05:05 UTC

Oh, thank you for that, I didn't know about the festival of Xanthika! Sounds probable. Much of this section grew out of 2 frustrations - constantly reading that boys joined the Royal Pages about 13 or 15 without any attempt at explanation, and the mistaken assumption in so many fanfiction stories that Hephaestion was an Athenian, or that he had his own Pages. This Athenian origin is used to make him a vulnerable and isolated outsider, which might increase the reader's empathy for him and give more scope for emotional drama, but it reduces him to a very feminine position. And I so don't believe he functioned as Alexander's wife! I don't know why we can't accept a close emotional dependance between Alexander and Hephaestion which might have had a sexual elemental but was closer to that of brothers than spouses.

mieza April 11 2010, 03:07:11 UTC

I don't know if you've read it, but you might find my recent article "The Cult of Hephaestion" interesting, regarding H.'s feminizing by moderns: Responses to Oliver Stone's 'Alexander,' Paul Cartledge and Fiona Greenland, eds., (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 183-217.

kizzikat April 11 2010, 10:36:31 UTC

Thank you for that. Yes, I have read it and it was my reason for buying the book in the first place! I did however find it a rather negative view of Hephaestion - concentrating on what he was not rather than what he was. I am not sure I agree with the interpretation of the Sogdiana column led by Hephaestion, or with the dating of his appointment to the Bodyguards - but there again, I'm no expert ( ... )

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