Explanation: Alexander the Great was notably very close with one of his bodyguards, Hephaestion. Hephaestion was Alexanderâs right-hand man, serving as his second-in-command and lifelong friend, having been with Alexander since Alexanderâs teenage years. In all matters, from affairs of state to personal secrets, Hephaestion was the man Alexander trusted most, and the trust was apparently mutual.
There are also a number of⌠curious hints as to what could have been a more intimate relationship than close friendship, including the account of Alexander and Hephaestion identifying themselves with the mythology figures of Achilles and Patrocles (both famously close friends in the Iliad and, in Greek interpretations of Alexanderâs period, lovers) and running a foot-race naked to celebrate. In fact, let me quote from wiki for a few choice bitsâŚ
As Robin Lane Fox says, âdescendants of the Dorians were considered and even expected to be openly homosexual, especially among their ruling class, and the Macedonian kings had long insisted on their pure Dorian ancestryâ.[69] This was no fashionable affectation; this was something that belonged at the heart of what it was to be Dorian, and therefore Macedonian, and had more in common with the Theban Sacred Band than with Athens.[70] Lucian, writing in his book On Slips of the Tongue, describes an occasion when Hephaestionâs conversation one morning implied that he had been in Alexanderâs tent all night,[71] and Plutarch describes the intimacy between them when he tells how Hephaestion was in the habit of reading Alexanderâs letters with him, and of a time when he showed that the contents of a letter were to be kept secret by touching his ring to Hephaestionâs lips.[72] There also exists a letter, spuriously attributed to Diogenes of Sinope, heavily hinting at Alexanderâs yielding to âHephaestionâs thighsâ.[73]
No other circumstance shows better the nature and length of their relationship than Alexanderâs overwhelming grief at Hephaestionâs death. As Andrew Chugg says, âit is surely incredible that Alexanderâs reaction to Hephaestionâs death could indicate anything other than the closest relationship imaginableâ.[74] The many and varied ways, both spontaneous and planned, by which Alexander poured out his grief are detailed below. In the context of the nature of their relationship however, one stands out as remarkable. Arrian says that Alexander âflung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companionsâ.[75]
When Hephaestion died, Alexander starved himself for three days, had Hephaestionâs doctor hanged (for not saving him), demolished the walls of several nearby cities, and burned the temple of the god of healing to the ground.
Just bestie things â¨
noname_yet2077@lemmy.world â¨4⊠â¨hours⊠ago
Oh yeah, It really shows the color