(no subject)
So, this is one piece down - two to go. And I'd better make them pretty quick given that I'm off to Egypt on Wednesday. Again. Ignore the references to various members of the Classics Department in the following piece - they're only relevant to those that know them.
Now, as promised, hot off the illustrious Classics department press:
Hollywood epics. We’ve all seen them. They lurk around every unsuspecting Classicist’s corner, waiting to pounce on the unwary and naïve. I’ll admit it now, to save myself embarrassment later on: most of the time, I look at the film and think ‘I could have done that so much better’. But the problem doesn’t always come in the interpretation of the story. There’s normally at least some small acknowledgement to actual events in epic retelling. (Troy is a prime example - the Trojan War may have only taken two weeks in film time, but at least we got a quick nod to some canonical facts. Sort of. Alright, we didn’t; I lied to make you all feel better.)
But it’s not story-telling we’re considering today; nor are we lambasting the directors who (mis)cast their leads. Instead let’s take a good long look at why, if you’re the Greek sidekick, you’re always going to get the short end of the stick.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I give you Exhibit A: one Patroclus, son of Monoetius. Alright, we’ve all heard both sides of the debate - was he the boyfriend, was he not? - and either way it’s frankly irrelevant. Achilles’ lover or no, he has been grossly ignored over the years. Troy is of course is the most well-known guilty party I am referring to in this little misadventure. Behold, Achilles has a cousin, but not just any cousin, an incompetent, whiny cousin whose sole purpose in life is to polish Achilles’ sword.
Ignoring innuendo for the moment (get your minds out of the gutter!) can this humble author beg to differ in her opinion from the film gods, more commonly known as directors? I am personally inclined to believe there was certainly some sort of distant familial connection between the two heroes; the epic cycle of the Trojan War has hinted as much. What I am far less disposed towards swallowing is the youth of Patroclus in the film, particularly in comparison to Achilles. He was older; he was far more sensible; he was put in charge of Achilles to make sure he didn’t do exactly what he eventually did. Patroclus is the sane one of the two - he is practical, reliable, and he is the one Nestor appeals to in the envoy to Achilles in the Iliad.
Plato sneers at Aeschylus for making the fundamental mistake in his Myrmidones that Wolfgang Petersen makes in Troy. He notes that ‘the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far…’ Plato’s probably right, inasmuch as we can guess the age of Patroclus. Certainly there is not a sense of inequality in the relationship between the two that would imply a significant age gap similar to that seen in Troy.
But relegating Patroclus to a younger role makes it so much easier to believe that his death was brought about through incompetence. I can understand Petersen’s problem: he’s ignoring the gods. Let us not forget, that Zeus and Apollo played weighty roles in bringing about the downfall of Patroclus - one making him forget his promise to stay close to the Greek camp; the other knocking the helmet from his head and making him vulnerable to the blow of a spear. Without the gods, another reason is needed for Patroclus’ death.
Nevertheless, to dismiss Patroclus as an incompetent warrior is to lose a significant portion of his character. He is a lover and a fighter; he is perhaps the only Greek warrior who has a likeable personality, and this is made all the more striking by the fact that he is as good in battle as the others. But he does not suffer hubris, nor is he accused of suspicious cunning or tyranny. Patroclus is, essentially, the Hector of the Greek side. Unlike Hector, however, his only family is Achilles and it is in this matter, more than any other, that Petersen has fallen down on in his movie.
Achilles and Patroclus are family. I’m not just talking about in the actual sense - as we’ve discussed above - but in that they coexist in what is practically a marital state. Patroclus cooks; he cleans; he sits and listens to Achilles playing the lyre; he mixes the wine and welcomes the guests. He’s performing all the duties of a Greek wife. There are captive women in the tent of Achilles - if that work should be done by anyone, tradition dictates it should be by them. But it’s not; instead we have Patroclus playing the role of wife and lover as well as comrade, mentor and friend. This gives depth to his character, and to his relationship with Achilles. Achilles is reliant on his second in command both on and off the battlefield and Petersen, in ignoring Patroclus and his position within Achilles’ camp, is disregarding the importance of the relationship between the two men.
Similarly, the reaction of Achilles to the death of Patroclus, in Book Sixteen of the Iliad, speaks of a strong relationship between them both. His mourning is excessive, but his actions are also overtly feminine in nature. He tears his clothing, pours dust over his head, beats his breast, keens, and refuses to be moved from the corpse. Most of our examples of dramatic mourning have to be taken from later (largely Athenian) examples; but in each case it is the woman who behaves in such a manner, never the man. A comfortable parallel then: here is a wife, lamenting the death of her husband.
The potentially romantic nature of the relationship aside, the bond between the two men still cannot be overlooked. The main importance of Patroclus comes in his emotional attachment (platonic or otherwise) to Achilles. Such has been the nature and main purpose of the sidekick since the dawning of literature. He is there to provide the counterbalance to the hero. A sidekick is the more sensible, down to earth half of a pairing that is supposed to be epic in nature, no matter what its genre. Even in cop novels we get the partners, the two (almost always) men who bounce off one another. Even there, there is the inevitable balance between the go-getter and the thinker. So too is there this balance between Achilles and Patroclus: one a rash individual, the other his more sensible counterweight.
Finally, in missing out or demoting Patroclus, one must simply fail to recognise that Achilles does, essentially, choose to die for him. Petersen did manage to place a small nod in his film to the choice Achilles faced: go to Troy and die young with eternal glory, or stay at home and live a long, happy life with no hope of being remembered. We get this in the Iliad, too. Thetis certainly bemoans the choices her son makes, and the epic cycle takes great care to point out the lengths to which she went to keep Achilles away from Troy. (Cross-dressing, anyone?) Nevertheless, what Homer makes absolutely clear is that Achilles still has a choice. There is a choice right up until he kills Hector. He still has the option to go home - the very thing he threatens to do until Book Sixteen - and live happily. It is only the death of Patroclus that provokes him into making his choice to stay. Not a wise move and certainly a rash one, but I find it interesting that with Patroclus gone, he throws away all sense of reason. He is essentially saying his life will be worthless if he leaves Hector alive. Hubris is a big part of Achilles’ character, but he throws all his pride aside just to have his revenge and sate his grief.
How then, can we ignore Patroclus? The man whose death shapes the very destiny of his lover’s? It is simple: he is the sidekick, and there is a perception in the modern era that the man playing second fiddle to the hero must be weaker.
This theme of weakness turns up again in Stone’s Alexander. Quite a few of you will have heard the blazing row that took place between myself and our very own DLA a couple of weeks back, when we both sat on the Sat. panel at the final debate, discussing the placement of Macedonian bodyguards within the mythos of Alexander’s legacy. It will come as no surprise to you, therefore, that far from simply stopping with Patroclus I have also taken it upon myself to champion Hephaistion.
Even more than Patroclus, Hephaistion is one of the most overlooked ‘boyfriends’ of the modern era. Let’s get this out of the way quickly: was he Alexander’s lover? I am almost utterly convinced he was. For the whole of his adult life? That I am not so sure about. Certainly though, in emotion they were closest to one another, whether the physical aspect of their relationship continued past the age culture dictated or not.
I have always been of the firm belief that in his film, Stone tried. He tried his hardest. I cannot fault him on his research, nor on the way he managed to slip in so many references to the sources he was working with. It is possible his film didn’t work quite simply because he tried so hard. He allowed himself no flexibility. Despite this, I must also applaud his attempts to give Hephaistion a relationship with Alexander that harked back to the ambiguity of their affair in the classical sources.
In spite of this ambiguity though, it was all the critics could think about. Well, that and Colin Farrell’s dye job. ‘Alexander the Gay!’ screamed one critic, demonstrating both an alarming amount of ignorance and homophobia in one small sentence. The general outcry surrounding the film focussed not so much on the portrayal of Alexander’s character but on the fact that he could be gay. Shock. Horror. This was not to be borne. There’s really no point in mentioning the group of Greek lawyers who tried to take Stone to court for daring to suggest one of their national heroes might prefer his own gender - their antics are something of a legend in classical circles now.
But in all the uproar and finger-pointing there was one real victim. I am referring, of course, to Hephaistion. The real one. Not the Jared Leto one, with his eye makeup.
There was so much focus on the fact that Alexander might be ‘gay’ that Hephaistion immediately became cast as the stereotypical boyfriend. Sadly, I feel I have to blame Stone for this, as the stereotype is certainly compounded by his film. Hephaistion cries. A lot. He makes eyes at Alexander. A lot. He wears increasing amounts of kohl. A lot. But does he do anything useful? Not really.
Some of this inability to give Hephaistion more than a passing nod can be blamed on the original sources. The problem we have is that Hephaistion does turn up quite a lot in various little incidents. All these certainly show Alexander’s affection for him, and quite a lot of them show him as a competent individual. But these incidents are brief. We are left with a vague impression of the man, but nothing more. I have long suspected this is because history was quietly working away, doing what it is still doing now: getting rid of the boyfriend.
I put this to you: Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Plutarch and Diodorus all rely on Ptolemy’s accounts of Alexander’s campaigns. Now consider this, if you will: Ptolemy is writing later, when he is Pharaoh and when he has set himself up as Alexander’s legitimate successor. What he is not going to want to acknowledge is that he was, at best, second or third choice for successor. Probably fourth, actually.
And who would have been the first? Hephaistion. This was the whole motive behind Alexander setting him up as Chiliarch of the Persian Empire. Hephaistion was meant to rule in the event of his lover’s death and it is only through misfortune that he did not live long enough to do anything much in his new capacity as what was basically co-ruler of a vast empire. It would seem to me then, that Alexander knew what Hephaistion was capable of. Apparently, here was a man who would be able to keep things together and sort out a whole empire whilst dealing with his own personal grief on top of everything else.
Hardly sounds like Leto’s Hephaistion, does he?
There are, of course, other factors to consider when looking at Hephaistion’s place in Stone’s film. Already running at a whopping three hours, it is extremely unlikely that Stone would have ever found time to do more than briefly acknowledge the man who would have been king. On top of that, Alexander was surrounded by so many men that it would have been impossible to give all of them the screen time needed for the audience to appreciate them.
Nevertheless, I still feel the film sells Hephaistion short. We do see an unswerving loyalty to Alexander, but we don’t see any of his intelligence. Nor do we really see Alexander’s affection for Hephaistion. Watch closely. You’ll note that before too long Hephaistion has pretty much been tossed aside with yesterday’s eunuchs, as Alexander goes increasingly mad and marries more wives. Yet Hephaistion clings on. I always find this makes me more uncomfortable than anything else in Stone’s film. There is a desperation in Leto’s Hephaistion; a hound-like eagerness to please. Loyal to a fault, but with no intelligence and no backbone, he stands behind Alexander nodding at everything he says and making increasingly more desperate declarations of his love, only to have them wearily rebuffed.
There is no intelligence in Stone’s Hephaistion, no fire, just a whole lot of issues and running mascara.
Still, at least he acknowledges Hephaistion, which is more than can be said for the earlier films starring Richard Burton and William Shatner. In Burton’s film, Hephaistion’s character does not exist. In Shatner’s his character is given to a much older, grizzled man - just to make sure there is absolutely no connotation of anything even slightly untoward in their relationship. Oh, and he’s been renamed ‘Menander’, just to make really, really sure.
Our last hope for a reasonable representation of Hephaistion rests then with Hiroshi Aramata’s Reign the Conqueror, as recommended by AHB. Yours truly duly tracked down a copy in Australia (and it took three days of hard Googling) and sat down to watch.
There is more of a likeable character here, to be sure. But he’s still so…girly. Everyone else has been given at least some manly qualities - even Ptolemy, who spends half the time screaming and running away. (This may have made me laugh quite nastily - finally, Ptolemy is getting his just desserts from the media world.) Hephaistion has long purple hair (did I mention this was an anime?); plays the harp a lot, and makes deliberately obscure remarks that help no one. He can throw knives at people and he wears a helmet that makes him look like a snail. No, really. If you don’t believe me go Google him.
He’s clearly meant to be intelligent; he’s obviously close to Alexander - although the series never goes so far as to claim they were lovers - and he does have some kick-arse fighting skills. But honestly? He’s still nothing more than a quiet sidekick, destined to do little but sit around and look pretty.
In the depths of my despair, there was only one place I could turn to console myself. Aubrey Menen’s A Conspiracy of Women has the Hephaistion the Classics world so longs for. Written as part historical fiction, part clever parallel of the colonisation of India by the British, this novel has all the answers. Hephaistion is witty; intelligent; close to Alexander; able to speak his mind and above all he has character. He is not a sidekick; he is a person in his own right. Lover? Maybe. I certainly read that inflection in their relationship.
So it is in fiction, dear reader, that we must place our hopes. Only in words can the boyfriend become an individual - a true character who is not demoted to a shallow stereotype and necessary plot device. It is in books that we trust, and so shall it remain for many years to come, I think. Being the boyfriend does not pay off in the world of film. It simply makes you unpopular to the plebs; condemns you in the eyes of the critics and gets you removed by the scriptwriters.
So I leave you with the words of DLA in her latest literary thesis: ‘Reader, Alexander married him.’
Only joking.
On a more serious note, one of these days a scriptwriter will come along who recognises the importance of the sidekick - who notes that it is through his relationship with the main characters and because of his own achievements that he should be portrayed, and portrayed well at that. Patroclus should be given his dues as a worthy hero and Hephaistion should be rightly recognised for what he was: not a sycophantic pretty boy who was as much use to Alexander as a pair of straightening tongs, but an intelligent, resourceful man who was one of the key factors holding Alexander’s empire together.
But Hollywood does not like the boyfriends of powerful men, and so they must remain silent, pandering to a set stereotype. Until we finally learn to recognise the value of sidekicks, they shall be like Patroclus in the Odyssey: speechless ghosts of the underworld, trailing after the dynamic essence of their lovers; standing as mere unintelligent shadows, behind the mythos of their heroic counterparts.
Now, as promised, hot off the illustrious Classics department press:
Hollywood epics. We’ve all seen them. They lurk around every unsuspecting Classicist’s corner, waiting to pounce on the unwary and naïve. I’ll admit it now, to save myself embarrassment later on: most of the time, I look at the film and think ‘I could have done that so much better’. But the problem doesn’t always come in the interpretation of the story. There’s normally at least some small acknowledgement to actual events in epic retelling. (Troy is a prime example - the Trojan War may have only taken two weeks in film time, but at least we got a quick nod to some canonical facts. Sort of. Alright, we didn’t; I lied to make you all feel better.)
But it’s not story-telling we’re considering today; nor are we lambasting the directors who (mis)cast their leads. Instead let’s take a good long look at why, if you’re the Greek sidekick, you’re always going to get the short end of the stick.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I give you Exhibit A: one Patroclus, son of Monoetius. Alright, we’ve all heard both sides of the debate - was he the boyfriend, was he not? - and either way it’s frankly irrelevant. Achilles’ lover or no, he has been grossly ignored over the years. Troy is of course is the most well-known guilty party I am referring to in this little misadventure. Behold, Achilles has a cousin, but not just any cousin, an incompetent, whiny cousin whose sole purpose in life is to polish Achilles’ sword.
Ignoring innuendo for the moment (get your minds out of the gutter!) can this humble author beg to differ in her opinion from the film gods, more commonly known as directors? I am personally inclined to believe there was certainly some sort of distant familial connection between the two heroes; the epic cycle of the Trojan War has hinted as much. What I am far less disposed towards swallowing is the youth of Patroclus in the film, particularly in comparison to Achilles. He was older; he was far more sensible; he was put in charge of Achilles to make sure he didn’t do exactly what he eventually did. Patroclus is the sane one of the two - he is practical, reliable, and he is the one Nestor appeals to in the envoy to Achilles in the Iliad.
Plato sneers at Aeschylus for making the fundamental mistake in his Myrmidones that Wolfgang Petersen makes in Troy. He notes that ‘the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far…’ Plato’s probably right, inasmuch as we can guess the age of Patroclus. Certainly there is not a sense of inequality in the relationship between the two that would imply a significant age gap similar to that seen in Troy.
But relegating Patroclus to a younger role makes it so much easier to believe that his death was brought about through incompetence. I can understand Petersen’s problem: he’s ignoring the gods. Let us not forget, that Zeus and Apollo played weighty roles in bringing about the downfall of Patroclus - one making him forget his promise to stay close to the Greek camp; the other knocking the helmet from his head and making him vulnerable to the blow of a spear. Without the gods, another reason is needed for Patroclus’ death.
Nevertheless, to dismiss Patroclus as an incompetent warrior is to lose a significant portion of his character. He is a lover and a fighter; he is perhaps the only Greek warrior who has a likeable personality, and this is made all the more striking by the fact that he is as good in battle as the others. But he does not suffer hubris, nor is he accused of suspicious cunning or tyranny. Patroclus is, essentially, the Hector of the Greek side. Unlike Hector, however, his only family is Achilles and it is in this matter, more than any other, that Petersen has fallen down on in his movie.
Achilles and Patroclus are family. I’m not just talking about in the actual sense - as we’ve discussed above - but in that they coexist in what is practically a marital state. Patroclus cooks; he cleans; he sits and listens to Achilles playing the lyre; he mixes the wine and welcomes the guests. He’s performing all the duties of a Greek wife. There are captive women in the tent of Achilles - if that work should be done by anyone, tradition dictates it should be by them. But it’s not; instead we have Patroclus playing the role of wife and lover as well as comrade, mentor and friend. This gives depth to his character, and to his relationship with Achilles. Achilles is reliant on his second in command both on and off the battlefield and Petersen, in ignoring Patroclus and his position within Achilles’ camp, is disregarding the importance of the relationship between the two men.
Similarly, the reaction of Achilles to the death of Patroclus, in Book Sixteen of the Iliad, speaks of a strong relationship between them both. His mourning is excessive, but his actions are also overtly feminine in nature. He tears his clothing, pours dust over his head, beats his breast, keens, and refuses to be moved from the corpse. Most of our examples of dramatic mourning have to be taken from later (largely Athenian) examples; but in each case it is the woman who behaves in such a manner, never the man. A comfortable parallel then: here is a wife, lamenting the death of her husband.
The potentially romantic nature of the relationship aside, the bond between the two men still cannot be overlooked. The main importance of Patroclus comes in his emotional attachment (platonic or otherwise) to Achilles. Such has been the nature and main purpose of the sidekick since the dawning of literature. He is there to provide the counterbalance to the hero. A sidekick is the more sensible, down to earth half of a pairing that is supposed to be epic in nature, no matter what its genre. Even in cop novels we get the partners, the two (almost always) men who bounce off one another. Even there, there is the inevitable balance between the go-getter and the thinker. So too is there this balance between Achilles and Patroclus: one a rash individual, the other his more sensible counterweight.
Finally, in missing out or demoting Patroclus, one must simply fail to recognise that Achilles does, essentially, choose to die for him. Petersen did manage to place a small nod in his film to the choice Achilles faced: go to Troy and die young with eternal glory, or stay at home and live a long, happy life with no hope of being remembered. We get this in the Iliad, too. Thetis certainly bemoans the choices her son makes, and the epic cycle takes great care to point out the lengths to which she went to keep Achilles away from Troy. (Cross-dressing, anyone?) Nevertheless, what Homer makes absolutely clear is that Achilles still has a choice. There is a choice right up until he kills Hector. He still has the option to go home - the very thing he threatens to do until Book Sixteen - and live happily. It is only the death of Patroclus that provokes him into making his choice to stay. Not a wise move and certainly a rash one, but I find it interesting that with Patroclus gone, he throws away all sense of reason. He is essentially saying his life will be worthless if he leaves Hector alive. Hubris is a big part of Achilles’ character, but he throws all his pride aside just to have his revenge and sate his grief.
How then, can we ignore Patroclus? The man whose death shapes the very destiny of his lover’s? It is simple: he is the sidekick, and there is a perception in the modern era that the man playing second fiddle to the hero must be weaker.
This theme of weakness turns up again in Stone’s Alexander. Quite a few of you will have heard the blazing row that took place between myself and our very own DLA a couple of weeks back, when we both sat on the Sat. panel at the final debate, discussing the placement of Macedonian bodyguards within the mythos of Alexander’s legacy. It will come as no surprise to you, therefore, that far from simply stopping with Patroclus I have also taken it upon myself to champion Hephaistion.
Even more than Patroclus, Hephaistion is one of the most overlooked ‘boyfriends’ of the modern era. Let’s get this out of the way quickly: was he Alexander’s lover? I am almost utterly convinced he was. For the whole of his adult life? That I am not so sure about. Certainly though, in emotion they were closest to one another, whether the physical aspect of their relationship continued past the age culture dictated or not.
I have always been of the firm belief that in his film, Stone tried. He tried his hardest. I cannot fault him on his research, nor on the way he managed to slip in so many references to the sources he was working with. It is possible his film didn’t work quite simply because he tried so hard. He allowed himself no flexibility. Despite this, I must also applaud his attempts to give Hephaistion a relationship with Alexander that harked back to the ambiguity of their affair in the classical sources.
In spite of this ambiguity though, it was all the critics could think about. Well, that and Colin Farrell’s dye job. ‘Alexander the Gay!’ screamed one critic, demonstrating both an alarming amount of ignorance and homophobia in one small sentence. The general outcry surrounding the film focussed not so much on the portrayal of Alexander’s character but on the fact that he could be gay. Shock. Horror. This was not to be borne. There’s really no point in mentioning the group of Greek lawyers who tried to take Stone to court for daring to suggest one of their national heroes might prefer his own gender - their antics are something of a legend in classical circles now.
But in all the uproar and finger-pointing there was one real victim. I am referring, of course, to Hephaistion. The real one. Not the Jared Leto one, with his eye makeup.
There was so much focus on the fact that Alexander might be ‘gay’ that Hephaistion immediately became cast as the stereotypical boyfriend. Sadly, I feel I have to blame Stone for this, as the stereotype is certainly compounded by his film. Hephaistion cries. A lot. He makes eyes at Alexander. A lot. He wears increasing amounts of kohl. A lot. But does he do anything useful? Not really.
Some of this inability to give Hephaistion more than a passing nod can be blamed on the original sources. The problem we have is that Hephaistion does turn up quite a lot in various little incidents. All these certainly show Alexander’s affection for him, and quite a lot of them show him as a competent individual. But these incidents are brief. We are left with a vague impression of the man, but nothing more. I have long suspected this is because history was quietly working away, doing what it is still doing now: getting rid of the boyfriend.
I put this to you: Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Plutarch and Diodorus all rely on Ptolemy’s accounts of Alexander’s campaigns. Now consider this, if you will: Ptolemy is writing later, when he is Pharaoh and when he has set himself up as Alexander’s legitimate successor. What he is not going to want to acknowledge is that he was, at best, second or third choice for successor. Probably fourth, actually.
And who would have been the first? Hephaistion. This was the whole motive behind Alexander setting him up as Chiliarch of the Persian Empire. Hephaistion was meant to rule in the event of his lover’s death and it is only through misfortune that he did not live long enough to do anything much in his new capacity as what was basically co-ruler of a vast empire. It would seem to me then, that Alexander knew what Hephaistion was capable of. Apparently, here was a man who would be able to keep things together and sort out a whole empire whilst dealing with his own personal grief on top of everything else.
Hardly sounds like Leto’s Hephaistion, does he?
There are, of course, other factors to consider when looking at Hephaistion’s place in Stone’s film. Already running at a whopping three hours, it is extremely unlikely that Stone would have ever found time to do more than briefly acknowledge the man who would have been king. On top of that, Alexander was surrounded by so many men that it would have been impossible to give all of them the screen time needed for the audience to appreciate them.
Nevertheless, I still feel the film sells Hephaistion short. We do see an unswerving loyalty to Alexander, but we don’t see any of his intelligence. Nor do we really see Alexander’s affection for Hephaistion. Watch closely. You’ll note that before too long Hephaistion has pretty much been tossed aside with yesterday’s eunuchs, as Alexander goes increasingly mad and marries more wives. Yet Hephaistion clings on. I always find this makes me more uncomfortable than anything else in Stone’s film. There is a desperation in Leto’s Hephaistion; a hound-like eagerness to please. Loyal to a fault, but with no intelligence and no backbone, he stands behind Alexander nodding at everything he says and making increasingly more desperate declarations of his love, only to have them wearily rebuffed.
There is no intelligence in Stone’s Hephaistion, no fire, just a whole lot of issues and running mascara.
Still, at least he acknowledges Hephaistion, which is more than can be said for the earlier films starring Richard Burton and William Shatner. In Burton’s film, Hephaistion’s character does not exist. In Shatner’s his character is given to a much older, grizzled man - just to make sure there is absolutely no connotation of anything even slightly untoward in their relationship. Oh, and he’s been renamed ‘Menander’, just to make really, really sure.
Our last hope for a reasonable representation of Hephaistion rests then with Hiroshi Aramata’s Reign the Conqueror, as recommended by AHB. Yours truly duly tracked down a copy in Australia (and it took three days of hard Googling) and sat down to watch.
There is more of a likeable character here, to be sure. But he’s still so…girly. Everyone else has been given at least some manly qualities - even Ptolemy, who spends half the time screaming and running away. (This may have made me laugh quite nastily - finally, Ptolemy is getting his just desserts from the media world.) Hephaistion has long purple hair (did I mention this was an anime?); plays the harp a lot, and makes deliberately obscure remarks that help no one. He can throw knives at people and he wears a helmet that makes him look like a snail. No, really. If you don’t believe me go Google him.
He’s clearly meant to be intelligent; he’s obviously close to Alexander - although the series never goes so far as to claim they were lovers - and he does have some kick-arse fighting skills. But honestly? He’s still nothing more than a quiet sidekick, destined to do little but sit around and look pretty.
In the depths of my despair, there was only one place I could turn to console myself. Aubrey Menen’s A Conspiracy of Women has the Hephaistion the Classics world so longs for. Written as part historical fiction, part clever parallel of the colonisation of India by the British, this novel has all the answers. Hephaistion is witty; intelligent; close to Alexander; able to speak his mind and above all he has character. He is not a sidekick; he is a person in his own right. Lover? Maybe. I certainly read that inflection in their relationship.
So it is in fiction, dear reader, that we must place our hopes. Only in words can the boyfriend become an individual - a true character who is not demoted to a shallow stereotype and necessary plot device. It is in books that we trust, and so shall it remain for many years to come, I think. Being the boyfriend does not pay off in the world of film. It simply makes you unpopular to the plebs; condemns you in the eyes of the critics and gets you removed by the scriptwriters.
So I leave you with the words of DLA in her latest literary thesis: ‘Reader, Alexander married him.’
Only joking.
On a more serious note, one of these days a scriptwriter will come along who recognises the importance of the sidekick - who notes that it is through his relationship with the main characters and because of his own achievements that he should be portrayed, and portrayed well at that. Patroclus should be given his dues as a worthy hero and Hephaistion should be rightly recognised for what he was: not a sycophantic pretty boy who was as much use to Alexander as a pair of straightening tongs, but an intelligent, resourceful man who was one of the key factors holding Alexander’s empire together.
But Hollywood does not like the boyfriends of powerful men, and so they must remain silent, pandering to a set stereotype. Until we finally learn to recognise the value of sidekicks, they shall be like Patroclus in the Odyssey: speechless ghosts of the underworld, trailing after the dynamic essence of their lovers; standing as mere unintelligent shadows, behind the mythos of their heroic counterparts.