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[Hephaistion]

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Excerpt from The Virtues of War by Steven Pressfield. It's a work of fiction about Alexander the Great, but based on reality, written in first person as though Alexander is speaking to his page. This is his description of Hephaistion so those who come into contact with my character may know him as I play him. It begins after Alexander has just executed several officers of his army for being 'malcontent' and wanting to return home rather than continue fighting in India...


Hephaistion is the ranking general of the expeditionary force, which is to say of the army entire. Many envy him bitterly. Craterus, Perdiccas, Coenus, Ptolemy, Seleucus - all consier themselves better field commanders. They are. But Hephaistion is worth the pack to me. Him awake, I can sleep. Him on my flank, I need look neither right nor left. His worth exceeds warcraft. He has brought over a hundred cities without bloodshed, simply by the excellence of his forward envoyage. Tact and charity, which would be weaknesses in a lesser man, are with him so innate that they disarm even the haughtiest and most ill-disposed of enemy chieftains. It is his gift to represent to these princes the reality of their position in such a way that accomodation (I resist the word submission) appears not at his instance, but at theirs, and with such generosity that we wind up straining to contain its excesses. Five score capitals have our forces entered, thanks to him, to find the populace lining the streets, hoarse with jubilation. He has saved the army deaths and casualties ten times its number. Nor have his feats of individual valor been less spectacular. He carries nine great wounds, all in the front. He is taller and better looking than I, as good a speaker, with as keen an eye for country. He lacks the element of the monstrous.

For this I love him.

I contain the monstrous. All my field commanders do. Hephaistion is a philosopher; they are warriors. He is a knight and a gentleman; they are murderers. Don't mistake me; Hephaistion has depopulated districts. He has presided over massacres. Yet these dont touch him. He remains a good man. The monstrous does not exist within him, and even the commission of monstrous acts cannot cede it purchase upon him. He suffers as I do not. He will not give voice to it, but the executions appalled him. They appalled me too, but for different reasons. I despise the inutility of such measures; he hates their cruelty. I scourge myself for failure of attention and imagination. He looks in the eyes of the condemned and dies with them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frVMNrv2EXw&feature=related