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Why . . . did I make this page?

Where

Who

Basically, because I wasn't satisfied with what I found on the web about Hephaistion.  Some wasn't bad, just brief.  The rest varied from uninformed or badly written to downright weird.  So in the democratic spirit of the internet, I decided that I should make my own page instead of just whine about the current state of affairs.  Put up or shut up, essentially.

But the real reason I made this site is because I believe that information should be free.  It's not the reserve of an intellegensia elite, or even of dewy-eyed college freshmen and cynical college seniors who do crossword puzzles during lecture.

Nevertheless, this isn't an academic site, precisely, even if I may be an academic.  There aren't any footnotes, I don't talk about modern scholarship except obliquely, and I name the ancient historians only occasionally.  Not because I couldn't do those things, but because that isn't the point of this page.

I'm writing popular history in plain English for people curious about Hephaistion and Alexander the Great.  So the style is colloquial, and I cheerfully mix what histories say with popular theories, my own theories, and even my own opinions.  If visitors would like to know where I found my information, read below under Where & Who, or feel free to email me with specific questions.  I can't guarantee I'll get back to you quickly, but I will answer.  (Just for the record, you can send hate mail or write to tell me what a doofus I am if you want, but don't expect an answer to that. <g>)

If you're a student . . . and you're writing a paper or making a presentation about Hephaistion, or Alexander, don't just read this page and surf a few others.  GO TO THE LIBRARY.   Look below under Where for some suggestions on sources; look above under Why for my reasons in creating this page as it stands.  I may be a specialist on Hephaistion, but you still need to know where I got my information.  Don't believe everything you read on the web.  The internet is not (yet) a substitute for cracking a book.  Verify your sources.

If you're writing a paper, you MUST cite these pages properly.  Go HERE to find out how.
If you want to contact me with a question, go HERE first.

I got all this stuff on Hephaistion because I've been studying him and his career for a long time.  But there are two places you can go, to learn more.

First -- and most important -- are our ancient historians themselves.  For Alexander, we're lucky.  We have four.  (Five, if you count Justin).  That may not seem like much compared to rooms full of documents about, say, FDR.  But for antiquity, it's a lot. These four main historians and their works on Alexander are:

--Arrian, History of Alexander and Indica
--Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander
--Plutarch, Life of Alexander
--Diodorus, Library of History, book 17 (and the last part of 16)

The first three are available in easy-to-order, inexpensive Penguin Classics editions.  (Diodorus in English is available only from the Loeb Library published by Cambridge.)  Each author has his virtues and vices, and they don't always agree about what happened.  But dealing with ancient histories is no different from perusing a modern newspaper.  Don't believe everything you read.  Just because it was written 2000+ years ago doesn't make it true.  (It just means it's even harder to decide if it's true!)  Greek historian Thucydides himself said, "People are inclined to accept all stories of ancient times in an uncritical way . . . Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear."

There's also occasional mention of Hephaistion in other books and writings from antiquity, mostly Plutarch's Moralia or Athenaeus' Supper Party.  (Both are massive compilations you'll have to dig up in a library.  Loeb publishes the English translations.  Use the indexes to save time!)

I list these ancient histories first because these are what modern historians use themselves -- not somebody's summary of somebody's account of somebody's study of these histories.  That's the reason, when I mention an author on this site, it's one these guys, not a modern scholar.

But there are LOTS of modern studies and biographies about Alexander.  Hundreds of them, both books and articles.  There are not, though, hundreds of studies about Hephaistion.  There are only a handful.  That makes listing them easy (or at least, listing what's in English).  But finding them is another story.  If you live near a college or university library, you might have more luck.  But if you don't, and want to lay hands on these, go to your friendly local reference librarian.  Ask him or her to fetch you these books by "interlibrary loan" (or ILL).  If you don't already know what that is, he or she certainly will.

--Hephaistion Amyntoros:  Eminence Grise at the Court of Alexander the Great.  Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman.  Diss. The Pennsylvania State University, c1998. (abstract)

The only book-length treatment of Hephaistion in English.  The information found on this site is a summary  of this study.  (No surprise, since I wrote both.)  Unfortunately, as a dissertation, it's not easy to get hold of.  Unless you're lucky and live near a library that keeps dissertations on microfilm, you'll have to request it by ILL, or order it from University Microfilms (UMI).  They do offer (unbound) print versions.  Since the UMI site is less than user-friendly, and I've now had numberous requests for help, go to the page bottom for instructions on how to navigate the site and order the dissertation.

This is simply a wonderful book in the sheer wealth of information about many key figures at Alexander's court, not just Hephaistion.  Heckel's take on Hephaistion is a bit different from my own, but as Twain said, it's a difference of opinion that makes horse races.  Even if I don't always agree with Heckel, I very much admire him and his work.  Read both and make up your own mind.  Click on Heckel's name to go to his own excellent, very thorough (and frequently updated) bibliography site - the best on the net for Alexander.

Yup, another dissertation.  Carney has since gone on to publish lots of articles and even a book on Macedonian women.  But she never revised this for a university or academic press.  As with Heckel's work, Hephaistion is only one of several officers whose career she examines.

And . . . th- th- that's all, folks!

I'm not joking, unfortunately.  Except for mention in Alexander histories (usually glancing), that's about all there is out there on Hephaistion in English.  The irony is that among Alexander fans and enthusiasts, he's always had a bit of a cult following. :-)

Considering the number of biographies about Alexander, some of which do talk a bit about Hephaistion, it might be a good idea to make a couple recommendations.

--"Alexander the Great and Heroic Leadership."  The Mask of Command.  John Keegan.  Viking Press, c1987.

This has the virtue of being easy to get hold of, new or used, for a reasonable price.  And it's also a pretty darn good summary of Alexander as a commander, being neither too critical nor full of apologetics.  But Keegan isn't an Alexander historian, so it's not always accurate on details.  Read it in concert with another biography.

--Conquest and Empire: the Reign of Alexander the Great.  A.B. Bosworth.  Cambridge UP, c1988.
--Alexander the Great.  J.R. Hamilton.  Pittsburgh UP, c1974  (link goes to ABE, the out of print search service)
--Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 BC: A Historical Biography.  Peter Green.  U. Cal Press, c1991 (reprint).
    (I should note that Green doesn't have much positive to say about Hephaistion.)

And if you'd like to know more about logistics themselves, since Hephaistion was a logistics officer, the main work on ancient logistics period, not just Alexander's, is:

--Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army.  Donald W. Engels.  U. Cal Press, c1978

I'm a specialist in Greco-Macedonian studies and as noted above, my dissertation was about Hephaistion, and I've published articles on Hephaistion, Alexander, and Alexander fiction in various academic journals and collections.  I have a forthcoming edited work, Looking in From the North (w/ Tim Howe), and I'm currently working on a monograph examing Hephaistion and Krateros at Alexander's court.  I was the last Ph.D student of Gene Borza (In the Shadow of Olympus), "Mr. American Macedonia" according to Oswyn Murray, and I'm currently the Hellenist and Ancient Near East specialist at UNO.

Email

Ordering the Dissertation:

Go to the main UMI site for dissertations.  Click on the "Dissertation Express" button at the bottom.  That should take you here.  You want to click on the SECOND option there, "as an individual" (obviously you're not a library (g)), which should take you here.  Fill out the info appropriately, which should take you a page asking how you want to order (choose the first option, to run the search), then under the AUTHOR option, type REAMES-ZIMMERMAN, and click the "search" button.  That will take you to a page with the title and other information, including the option to add it to your shopping cart.  If you click the link with the dissertation number, you should land on the full citation.

Now, all that said, let me put out a word of caution to those of you who may wish to order it.  First, two chapters have already appeared in print, and are (imo) better versions than what appear in the dissertation; they can be requested through ILL (interlibrary loan).  One of the appendices may appear in print soonish.  It's in the final stages of editing to submit.  If the Robin Lane Fox/Fiona Greenland anthology Responses to Alexander is accepted for publication, I'll also be writing a chapter for that (or should be) some of which will summarize material in the dissertation as well.  And last, I'm working on a book that will cover the rest of the material in that dissertation, plus some (on Krateros).  So in short, a lot of the material in the dissertation is gradually finding its way into academic publications that are more readily available (and in better form).  Right now, unbound copies of the dissertation cost about $38, so consider whether you really want to invest that in a book that will be superceded in, oh, 5-10 years.  I'm not trying to be discouraging, but I feel honor bound to note all this.  The dissertation is not (yet) my final word on Hephaistion.