Dr. Heckel’s Dissertation on Alexander’s Marshals

[Sweetmemory41]

https://open.library.ubc.ca/media/downl ... .0094524/1

Dr. Heckel, in his dissertation, focuses on the following four marshals of Alexander the Great - Hephaistion, Leonnatos, Krateros, and Perdikkas. This research seems to be the starting point of his subsequent works on ATG’s marshals. Dr. Heckel’s take on Hephaistion is very hostile and is contrary to that of such scholars as Dr. Reames, Dr. Muller, and Renault.

[Alexias]

Thank you for this. It will take a while to read, perhaps it will provide some answers to the undercurrent of hostility towards Hephaestion in scholars of the sort of 1970s, 1980s (eg Peter Green). I do not know if it is a bias against homosexuality and the concomitant charges of nepotism, or a combination of the fact that the little we know of him is that he quarrelled with Craterus and Eumenes, and that he had to be 'babied' by another commander, and was not a major battlefield commander.

What often gets forgotten in this 'joint commandership' is that we are told that Alexander split the command of the Companion Cavalry after the Philotas affair because he did not want to put too much power into the hands of one man, and he obviously continued this policy. This must partly have been because they were also commanding significantly more men, of diverse loyalties, than the original invasion force, and some of the men he was promoting were significantly younger than the 'old guard' (Perdiccas and Hephaestion were about the same age as Alexander), and simply wouldn't have had the experience of a Parmenion. Anyway, enough of that.

[Jeanne Reames]

Heckel's dissertation has been replaced by his first The Marshal's of Alexander's Empire, and the later second edition Alexander's Marshals. The first came out before my or Sabine's work, but the second still holds to his original opinion on Hephaistion.

I'm working on a monograph about Hephaistion and Krateros at present. Not sure when it'll be finished, much less published. It a many-years later revision of my own doctoral dissertation on Hephaistion, with a lot more background on the court, and, of course, the addition of Krateros.

[delos13]

I'm working on a monograph about Hephaistion and Krateros at present. Not sure when it'll be finished, much less published. It a many-years later revision of my own doctoral dissertation on Hephaistion, with a lot more background on the court, and, of course, the addition of Krateros.

How interesting! Please keep us posted.