#this is about my early greek poetry essay btw

[smilerri]

I hate having good ideas for essays because I am so so stupid and cannot write essays so I just have to let the idea run around in my head screaming bloody mary meanwhile I write one word per hour

[jeannereames]

Do you think that there are any lost writings from Hephaistion? Letters, speeches, diary entries (if that was common practice back then) etc. If any did exist, are they lost forever or is there a chance they might be found? The hopeless romantic in me also wonders if love letters were a thing back then and if Alexander or Hephaistion would have written any to eachother?

We know of a collection of letters from Aristotle to Hephaistion which, if Pliny’s Letters are any example, may well have included Hephaistion’s replies. But it’s lost. (A book of letters to Antipatros, Olympias, and 4 to Alexander from Aristotle are also recorded by Diogenes Laertius.) In addition, we learn (same author) that Hephaistion and Xenokrates (in charge of Plato’s Academy) exchanged letters too.

So he either had a philosophic bent of mind, or liked to think of himself so. That record of letters exchanged with learned men was some of the impetus behind the “between” novelette “For the Love of Geometry.” In another life, one without Alexander in it, I could see (my) Hephaistion running off to Eudoxos in Knidos.

Anyway, as for the historical person, I’m sure there were a number of documents from him including letters to various people and possibly even essays (if he had time for them). I’ll play with this idea in future novels.

Diaries weren’t a thing, btw. When Caesar wrote about his own campaigns, he wrote about himself in 3rd person. LOL. If Plutarch invented biography in the 1st century BCE, the first (western) autobiography was Augustine’s Confessions.

The personal usually took the form of poetry. In fact, the earliest named author (Enheduanna, daughter of the conqueror Sargon of Akkad and a priestess of Nanna/Sin [moon god]) wrote several hymns, and in one of them, aside from praising both Ishtar and Sin (et al.), she also detailed her anger at being tossed out of her temple by an usurper: e.g., what we could consider autobiographical material. In the ANE, singing one’s praises was common for kings, and might include, again, autobiographical detail. Whether we can/should believe it is a different discussion. And later, in Greek epic poetry of the Archaic Age (and early Classical) we get a lot of personal info. Hesiod’s Works and Days, aside form being advice on farming, is an affronted tirade about his brother, Perseus.

So the ancient do tell us about themselves, but it’s usually in a form meant to be read by others. The notion of writing for themselves wouldn’t have made sense to them. The Confessions was certainly meant to be read by others, but it’s our first real example of an individual sitting down to tell you, systematically, “How I got here from there [childhood/youth].”

As for any love letters...no, that wasn’t really a thing, or not in the vein of, say, Heloise and Abelard. :-)

BUT love poetry was. There’s quite a lot of it. A mercenary like Archilochos could write about leaving his shield after a defeat in battle, to Olympic victors to softer matters; he was a lyric poet as well as a warrior. Real Men played the lyre. (ha) Aristotle wrote poetry too, as did Solon of Athens.

So it’s not at all beyond the pale that Hephaistion may, especially if he fancied himself an intellectual and literati, have written love poetry for Alexander. Or perhaps he composed odes to his battle glory. I dare say the latter might have been more welcome. LOL.

As for whether we’d ever recover any? That’s all about chance, and the relative popularity of any given work. But archaeology is better at recovering things these days. The story behind the Athenaion Politaia lights hope in every historian’s heart. Ha.