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Hephaestion ( ''Hephaistion''; c. 356 BC – 324 BC), son of Amyntor, was a Macedonian nobleman 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 friendship 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 he 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 in Babylon in the presence of the entire army. 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 Laertius, Aristotle 5〕 The letters themselves no longer exist, 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 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 due to 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. While it is true that very little detail of Hephaestion’s childhood and education can be found, that which remains gives credence to what is known about his later life. His friendship with Alexander was long-lasting, as was his tenure in the court at Pella; he even shared the same education as the future Great King of Greece and Asia. With such a promising start, age and experience would have helped mould Hephaestion Amyntoros into the man who would one day be the second most powerful man in Alexander’s empire, second only to the king himself. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hephaestion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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