Hephaestion
HEPHAESTION - there were two noted characters of classical antiquity by this name:
HEPHAESTION, a Macedonian general, celebrated as the friend of Alexander the Great, who, comparing himself with Achilles, called Hephaestion his Patroclus. In the later campaigns in Bactria and India, he was entrusted with the task of founding cities and colonies, and built the fleet intended to sail down the Indus. He was rewarded with a golden crown and the hand of Drypetis, the sister of Alexander's wife Stateira (324). In the same year he died suddenly at Ecbatana. A general mourning was ordered throughout Asia; at Babylon a funeral pile was erected at enormous cost, and temples were built in his honour (see ALEXANDER THE GREAT).
HEPHAESTION, a grammarian of Alexandria, who flourished in the age of the Antonines. He was the author of a manual (abridged from a larger work in 48 books) of Greek metres (''Eyxtiptiiov irepl ij.krpwv), which is most valuable as the only complete treatise on the subject that has been preserved. The concluding chapter (Ilept ironwares) discusses the various kinds of poetical composition. It is written in a clear and simple style, and was much used as a school-book.
Editions by T. Gaisford (1855, with the valuable scholia), R. Westphal (1886, in Scriptores metrici Graeci) and M. Consbruch (1906); translation by T. F. Barham (1843); see also W. Christ, Gesch. der griech. Litt. (1898); M. Consbruch, De veterum Utpl iron7/iaTos doctrina (1890) ; J. E. Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. i. (1906).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
