Hephaistion's Physical Appearance in Dancing with the Lion

anonymous  asked:

hello. how do you imagine hephaestion, esp look-wise?

Another question from Tumblr that yielded a long response of possible interest to others....

Apologies in advance for a long discussion, but…it’s a long discussion (with pretty pictures?).

With Hephaistion, we have only ONE statue that’s positively identified (e.g. he’s named). Several others are IDed as him by art historians, but it’s speculation, and alternative IDs have been offered. To complicate matters further, the one certainly identified sculpture is a dedicatory plaque (currently in the Thessalonike Museum, image below). These are often “idealized,” or even pre-carved to be selected by the purchaser. So we can’t be sure the image of Hephaistion on the plaque was what he actually looked like.

Of the images identified as him, but not certainly named, they fall into 3 basic categories. First, the hopelessly generic “young ephebe,” of which the Getty head is perfect, although the Getty head is, also, quite likely a FORGERY. Yet it’s still a good example of the “type.” If you compare this to generic Classical and early Hellenistic portraiture of young men in their late teens/early 20s, you’ll see there’s really nothing DISTINCTIVE (e.g., a likeness, or even a portrait) about it. So this isn’t what he looked like, either, issues of forgery aside.

There are two other types, one a sort of oval face where (honestly) he looks sorta dim–the so-called “Demetrios” statue (which might, in fact, BE Demetrios Poliorketes), and another type that has a squarish jaw, and–of them all–seems the closest to a portrait. Whatever I said above about the Thessaloniki dedication, it does fall into that third category, which I call “Square-jaw Hephaistion.” Maybe that’s the one physical attribute we can give him? Incidentally, in the novel, I do describe him in several places as “square-jawed” in reference to that.

But the head that has always intrigued me most is the Prado Bronze. Today, it’s more commonly called Demetrios Poliorketes, but the head isn’t positively named. I’ve seen other portraits of Poliorketes, and I don’t think it’s the same person (hair motif aside). That doesn’t make it Hephaistion, of course, but there are arguments in favor of that identification. (But, alas, the jaw is mostly missing/smashed, so I can’t use the “square jaw” argument, ha.)

ERGO, the Prado Bronze remains my “Hephaistion head-cannon” from ancient statuary.

When Riptide was asking me for input for the cover images, I sent the above image-, as well as the Akropolis head for Alexander. They also asked about human models, and for Alexander, I didn’t have one. Yet L.C. Chase used the Akropolis head and worked some sort of wonderful voodoo to find that stock model because he knocked me on my ass. Whoever he is, he’s as close to a living model for Alexander that I’ve seen. Well, he’s too pretty (my Alexander is less attractive with a crooked nose), but, my God, THOSE EYES. Perfect.

For Hephaistion, I went out to poke around a bit on the web, Prado Bronze in mind, and came across a Portuguese model named Vick Correia who, while not a dead ringer, I thought could be a younger version of the Prado. Correia’s mouth is wider, and his nose is not that no-dip-between-the-eyes blade of a Greek nose, but…it’s not a bad match. Plus he just happened to have long, curly hair and dark coloring. So, here’s the image of Correia that I first saw that made me go, “THERE HE IS!”

ANOTHER:

And Number 3 (that shows off the square jaw on the model)

LC (the cover artist) couldn’t use Correia himself for book 2, for a variety of reasons (mostly related to COST), but she went hunting for as close as she could get, and it’s…not bad. I joke about him as “Vampire Hephaistion” but that’s partly a function of fixing the hair (it’s too, too straight) and using a “blue wash” on the color. Yet comparing the stock model next to Correia, it’s all right. (I’m actually more concerned by the ROMAN aquaduct in the background; if she’d asked, I’d have recommended using the Temple to Hephaistos in the Athenian agora…what a wonderful visual pun!)

ANYway–and the hunt for living models aside–given the absolute paucity of certain images of Hephaistion, we have to turn to the literature, which is only a bit more help. There are two glancing descriptions of him, both found in Curtius, and another that’s a couple degrees removed but still might give us something.

In Curtius book 3, we have our longest description of Hephaistion in any ancient source, and by “description,” I mean information about him, not just physical. The physical in the description is frustratingly brief. We’re told that he was “of larger physique” than Alexander, and attractive. The Latin usually translated as “taller” really just means “bigger” (and not as in fatter). But yes, “taller” would certainly work. A LOT of modern fiction authors do portray him as not only larger but taller, sometimes notably so. Yet keep in mind, Curtius is only comparing him to Alexander, who was apparently a bit short. So to be honest, he could have been of average height. (But where’s the fun in that? And I have a reason I think he was actually tall/large.)

Later in (I think? I’m doing this from memory) book 6 of Curtius, Hephaistion is compared to another Page who had (apparently) caught Alexander’s eye. The Page came off the worse for the comparison, being called perhaps as attractive, but not as virile, or manly.

But that’s all we got from the texts. It doesn’t add up to much.

In the book, I gave him dark coloring for an historical reason. First, I’d like to point out that the ancient Greeks were not as COLOR (hue) focused as we are. They elevated other qualities such as brightness, contrast, etc. Sometimes their terms for colors (frustratingly) throw together shades we consider distinct. Blue can be gray can be green. “Melas,” just means “dark,” so Melas Boukephalas could have been any shade from black to brown. Ergo, what color Alex’s hair was remains a debated point. He’s called ruddy-fair in complexion, but Plutarch never named his hair color. If the Istanbul sarcophagus can be believed (which, together with the Pella mosaics, I think it can be), Alexander was a *strawberry blond*. That would perfectly match a ruddy-fair complexion. But note hair color is our obsession, not theirs.

That said, I chose to give Hephaistion dark coloring because of his probable Ionic-Attic roots, which I’ve talked about before, and which I’m working on the finishing touches of a loooong-ass epigraphic/onomastic digital mapping project. BUT, Athenians and others of Ionic roots were described as darker than Dorians (or Aeolians). So Hephaistion’s hair/eyes in the novel are “black” (melas). That just means his hair is super dark espresso brown and his eyes are “cow eyes.” Btw, the Greek considered that a COMPLIMENT. Hera is described as having beautiful “cow eyes.”

Last … the whole SIZE thing. If you look at statuary of Alexander, he may have been of slightly less than average height, but he’s almost routinely shown to have broad shoulders and a wide chest. Maybe that’s idealization, too, but not necessarily. We know he fought in the front line, he was a runner, and he was just damn strong. So I’m inclined to think of him as shortish, but *broad*. (Not unlike my father, incidentally, who as a young soldier in WW II had a build very like Alexander’s in statuary. And my father, although only 5′8″ on a good day, was not only stronger than his taller contemporaries, but as tough as nails.)

So keep that in mind, when Curtius says Hephaistion is “larger in physique.” Alexander is not *small* or skinny. He’s just short.

Now, one LAST piece…Hephaistion is described as leading the “bodyguard” at Gaugamela. Lots of confusion over that. Doesn’t mean the Bodyguard (as in the 7-man Somatophylakes) but the bodyguard, the Hypaspists. And the Hypaspists were, under Philip, called the Pezhetairoi. The infantry were just “pezes” …footmen. Alex gave the name Pezhetairoi to the infantry as an honor, so needed a new name for the special crack unit his father created. He chose the term hypaspists, which meant “Shield bearer.” It’s an honorary term for (usually) the leader’s inner circle. Patroklos would have been a hypaspist for Achilles.

But we’re told something else about ol’ Phil’s Pezhetairoi. In selecting his crack troops, he didn’t use regional units (as usual) for regular sarissaphoi (infantry). INSTEAD, he selected men based on SIZE. The biggest and best fighters.

So if Hephaistion is leading the Hypaspists (=Pezhetairoi) at Gaugamela, and by leading, that’s probably the agema and (so Waldemar Heckel, and I think he’s right) the exclusive Hammipoi of the Hypaspists, HEPHAISTION WAS BIG GUY. Probably not only in height but in musculature.

In the novel, I still have him as a skinny late teen/early 20-something. He’s only 22 when Rise ends. But he’s still maturing. He’ll become sizable as the novel series progresses. :-)