（个人翻译，包含一定主观意译，如有谬误望指出，仅供同好参考及学习用，如有需要可私聊获取源文件，原版权属于维基百科，无授权个人翻译）

原网址：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestion#Modern_sources

Relationships关系

Little is known of Hephaestion's personal relationships beyond his close friendship with Alexander. Alexander was an outgoing, charismatic man who had many friends but his dearest and closest friend and confidant was Hephaestion. Theirs was a friendship which had been forged in boyhood. It endured through adolescence, through Alexander's becoming king, and through the hardships of campaigning and the flatteries of court life and their marriages. Apart from Diogenes of Sinope's alleged letter quoted below, heavily hinting at Alexander's yielding to Hephaestion's thighs, ancient sources do not generally mention that Hephaestion and Alexander may have been lovers, as some modern scholars have theorized. Overall direct evidence is non-existent and, at least according to Thomas R. Martin, this was a practice which was uncommon by majority Greek standards of their time.

除了他和亚历山大的亲密友谊以外，人们对赫菲斯蒂安的人际关系知之甚少。亚历山大是一个外向而充满魅力的男子，但他众多朋友中最亲爱的、最亲密的朋友和知己是他的赫菲斯蒂安。他们的友谊从孩提时代就开始了。这段感情经历了青春期、，经历了亚历山大继位，经历了艰难的竞选，经历了谄媚的宫廷生活，经历了他们的婚姻。第欧根尼（注：希腊的哲学家）写于锡诺普的信被引用，亚历山大一生中只败在赫菲斯蒂安的大腿之间，这是一种强烈暗示，很多古代文献一般没有提到亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安是情人关系，而这正是很多现代学者秉承的观点。总而言之没有明确的证据，至少在托马斯·R·马丁看来，这种情况在当时的希腊人中是一种不寻常且不常见的做法。

Their tutor Aristotle described friendship as "... one soul abiding in two bodies". That they themselves considered their friendship to be of such a kind is shown by the stories of the morning after the battle of Issus. Diodorus, Arrian and Curtius all describe the scene when Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit the captured Persian royal family. Its senior member, the queen Sisygambis, knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives, having mistaken him for Alexander because he was taller, and both young men were wearing similar clothes. When she realized her mistake she was acutely embarrassed, but Alexander pardoned her, saying "You were not mistaken, Mother; this man too is Alexander." Their love for each other was no secret, as is borne out by their own words. Hephaestion, when replying to a letter to Alexander's mother, Olympias, said "... you know that Alexander means more to us than anything." Arrian says that Alexander, after Hephaestion's death, described him as "... the friend I valued as my own life." Paul Cartledge describes their closeness when he says: "Alexander seems actually to have referred to Hephaestion as his alter ego."

他们的导师亚里士多德将这段关系描述为“……一个灵魂住在两个身体里……”他们也认为这段关系正是如此，这在伊苏斯战役之后的一个早上中体现了这个观点。狄奥多罗斯、阿里安、库尔修斯都描述了亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安一起去拜访被俘虏的波斯王室的场面。其中地位最高的王后西绪甘碧斯跪在赫菲斯蒂安面前请求他宽恕他们的性命，她误将赫菲斯蒂安认成了亚历山大，因为两个年轻人穿着近似的衣服，而赫菲斯蒂安更高一些。当王后意识到自己的错误时，感到非常局促不安，但亚历山大原谅了她，并说：“你没有错，王后，这个人也是亚历山大。”他们对彼此的爱从来不是秘密，并显示在他们的言语中。赫菲斯蒂安，当他给亚历山大的母亲奥林匹亚斯回信时，写到“……你知道亚历山大对我们来说意味着一切。”阿里安记载道，赫菲斯蒂安死后，亚历山大称呼赫菲斯蒂安为“……我爱逾性命的朋友。”保罗·卡特里奇描述他们的亲密关系为“亚历山大似乎真的将赫菲斯蒂安看做另一个自己。”

Their friendship was also a working partnership; in all that Alexander undertook, Hephaestion was at his side. They worked well together; it is possible to discern a pattern, when studying Hephaestion's career, of Alexander's constant trust in, and increasing reliance on, Hephaestion. By the time of the advance into India, after the deaths of senior generals from the older generation, there had been worrying instances among senior officers of their own generation of treachery, a lack of sympathy with Alexander's aims of further integration of Persians into the army, and of sheer incompetence. Time after time, when Alexander needed to divide his forces he entrusted half to Hephaestion, knowing that in him he had a man of unquestionable loyalty who understood and sympathized with his aims and, above all, who got the job done.

他们的友谊也是一种共事关系；在亚历山大所做的一切事情中，赫菲斯蒂安都坚定的支持着他。他们合作的很好；在研究赫菲斯蒂安职业生涯的时候可以看到，亚历山大越来越信任和依赖着赫菲斯蒂安。进军印度期间，在老一辈的高级将领死亡后，在他们自己一辈的高级军官中出现了令人担忧的背叛的例子，对亚历山大融合波斯军队的目标，他们即不理解又缺乏能力。一次又一次，当亚历山大需要拆分军队时都会选择赫菲斯蒂安，因为他知道对方对自己绝对的忠诚，对自己目标的理解和同理心，最重要的是，赫菲斯蒂安每次都完成了自己的任务。

Hephaestion played a full part in Alexander's regular consultations with senior officers, but he was the one to whom Alexander would also talk in private, sharing his thoughts, hopes and plans. Curtius states that Hephaestion was the sharer of all his secrets. And Plutarch describes an occasion when Alexander had a controversial change to impose and implies that Hephaestion was the one with whom Alexander discussed it and who arranged for the change to be implemented. According to the painting done by Aetion of Alexander's first wedding, Hephaestion was his torch bearer (best man), showing by this not only his friendship, but also his support for Alexander's policies as Alexander's choice of an Asian bride had not been a popular one. By the time they returned to Persia Hephaestion was officially, by title, Alexander's second-in-command, as he had long been in practice, and also his brother-in-law. Hammond sums up their public relationship well: "It is not surprising that Alexander was as closely attached to Hephaestion as Achilles was to Patroclus", and "At the time of his death Hephaestion held the highest single command, that of the Companion Cavalry; and had been repeatedly second in command to Alexander in the hierarchy of the Asian court, holding the title of Chiliarch, which had been held by Nabarzanes under Darius. Thus Alexander honoured Hephaestion both as the closest of his friends and the most distinguished of his Field Marshals."

在亚历山大和高级将领的定期磋商中，赫菲斯蒂安有一个完整的形象，但他是唯一一个亚历山大私下交谈、分享想法、分享梦想和计划的人。库尔修斯说赫菲斯蒂安共享亚历山大所有的秘密。普鲁塔克暗示了亚历山大一次有争议的融合举措，是与赫菲斯蒂安商议过并由对方安排实施的。根据亚历山大第一场婚礼所做的画作来看，赫菲斯蒂安是他的火炬手（伴郎），这不仅体现了他的友谊，更表现了他对亚历山大政策的支持，因为亚历山大娶一个亚洲新娘的行为并不被看好。当他们回到波斯的时候，赫菲斯蒂安被正式任命为亚历山大的二把手，正如他长期所做的那样，同时他的妹夫也被这么培养着。哈蒙德很好地总结了他们的公开关系：“毋庸置疑，亚历山大对赫菲斯蒂安的密切关注就像阿克琉斯对帕特克洛斯一样。”并且“在他死的时候，赫菲斯蒂安拥有对皇家骑兵的最高统率权。在亚洲的法律制度中，赫菲斯蒂安拥有仅次于亚历山大的统治权，即最高的千夫长一职，这是在大流士统治时期纳巴扎尼所拥有的待遇。因此，亚历山大很高兴自己最亲密的朋友担任国家最重要的陆军元帅。”

It has been suggested by some modern scholars that as well as being close friends Alexander and Hephaestion were also lovers despite the fact that hardly any of Alexander's extant ancient Greek or Roman biographers ever refers to Hephaestion as anything but Alexander's friend, consistent with Hephaestion's epithet “Philalexandros” which was given to him by Alexander himself. The ancient sources generally name Hephaestion only as a good and loyal friend of Alexander's.

一些现代学者认为，赫菲斯蒂安不止是亚历山大最为亲密的朋友同时也是他的爱人，尽管这一事实很难在古希腊和罗马的亚历山大传记作品中找到，它们只将赫菲斯蒂安称为亚历山大的朋友，符合赫菲斯蒂安被亚历山大赋予的称呼“Philalexandros”（注：意为亚历山大挚友）。古代文献在提到赫菲斯蒂安的名字时，仅仅说他是一个忠于亚历山大的朋友。

However, Arrian describes the occasion when Alexander and Hephaestion publicly identified themselves with close friends Achilles and Patroclus. It happened right at the beginning of the campaign in Asia when Alexander led a contingent of the army to visit Troy, scene of the events in his beloved Iliad. He laid a wreath on the tomb of Achilles and Hephaestion laid a wreath on the tomb of Patroclus and they ran a race, naked, to honour their dead heroes. Arrian discreetly draws no conclusions from this, but, according to Thomas R. Martin, by no means does the identification of Alexander and Hephaestion with Achilles and Patroclus equate to their being homosexuals as Homer, author of the Iliad, never suggested that Achilles and his close friend Patroclus were homosexual or that they had sexual relations. Martin further suggests this concept was theorized by unspecified "later authors", who include however such eminent writers as Aeschylus and Plato that had lived before Alexander and Hephaestion's time. Thus, according to Robin Lane Fox quite different conclusions can be drawn: "It was a remarkable tribute, uniquely paid, and it is also Hephaestion's first mention in Alexander's career. Already the two were intimate, Patroclus and Achilles even to those around them; the comparison would remain to the end of their days and is proof of their life as lovers, for by Alexander's time, Achilles and Patroclus were agreed to have enjoyed the relationship which Homer himself had never directly mentioned."

然而，阿里安描述了亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安公开宣称他们的关系就像阿克琉斯和帕特克洛斯的关系一样。这是在远征亚洲初期发生的，亚历山大率领一支军队拜访特洛伊，那个他心爱的史诗伊利亚特的发生地。亚历山大像阿克琉斯的墓献了花环，而赫菲斯蒂安则向帕特克洛斯的墓献了花环，他们赤身赛跑以此纪念逝去的英雄们。对此，阿里安谨慎的没有留下任何论断，但是托马斯·R·马丁认为，亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安的祭祀和认证阿克琉斯和帕特克洛斯的行为并不意味着他们有同性恋情，因为《伊利亚特》的作者荷马从来没有明确说过阿克琉斯和他最亲密帕特克洛斯之间有同性恋情或者是性关系。马丁进一步指出，这一概念（注：指阿克琉斯和帕特克洛斯是恋人关系）是由未指明的“后来的作家”提出的，包括埃斯库罗斯和柏拉图等知名作者，他们生活在亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安的时代之前。因此，根据罗宾·莱恩·福克斯的说法，可以得出截然不同的结论：“这是一种非凡的致敬，独特的礼物，也是赫菲斯蒂安首次在亚历山大的生涯中被提起。首先相比于他们的同伴，两人已经无比亲密了，宛如密不可分的阿克琉斯和帕特克洛斯；这一对比的恋人关系将会一直持续到他们生命的尽头，因为在亚历山大的时代，阿克琉斯和帕特克洛斯被认为享有荷马本人从未提及的爱情关系。”

Hephaestion and Alexander grew up in a time where, according to Thomas R. Martin, homosexual affairs were seen as abnormal by majority Greek standards of their time. But Andrew Chugg, Robin Lane Fox and others show different views. According to Eva Cantarella, for instance, male bisexuality was widely permitted and ruled by law, and generally not frowned upon by the public to the extent to which it remained within the preset limits. The Greeks used to approach the relationships between men in a very different way from how they will be dealt with today (with exceptions of course). For the Greeks "homosexuality was not an exclusive choice. Loving another man was not an option out of the norm, different, somehow deviant. It was just a part of life experience; it was the show of an either sentimental or sexual drive that, over a lifetime, alternated and was associated (sometimes at the very same time) with love for a woman". The pattern that same-sex love affairs followed, however, was not the same in every city-state. Some Roman and later writers, taking the Athenian pattern as their example, have tended to assume either that Alexander and Hephaestion had a sexual relationship which belonged to their adolescence, after which they left it behind, or that one of them was older, the lover (erastes) and the other was the beloved (eromenos) despite there being scarcely any direct evidence that Alexander and Hephaestion had a sexual relationship at all.

依据托马斯·R·马丁的说法，在当时的情况下，也就是赫菲斯蒂安和亚历山大成长的年代，同性恋情在大部分希腊人眼中是不正常的。安德鲁·查格、罗宾·莱恩·福克斯等人有不同的观点。比如，依据伊娃·坎特拉雷的说法，男性双性恋是符合规范并被法律允许的，并且一般不会受到公众反对，因为这属于预设范围内的事情。过去的希腊人用一种完全不同的方式处理男人之间的关系，这与他们现在的处理方法有很大不同（当然也有例外）。对于希腊人来说“同性恋不是唯一的选择。爱上另一个男人不是一种不寻常或不同于他人的选择。这只是生活经历的一部分；这是一种情感和性冲动的表现，在人一生中交替出现，有时与对一个女人的爱联系在一起（可能是同一时间）。”然而在每个城邦同性恋情的模式都不尽相同。后来的一些罗马作家，往往以雅典模式为例，假定亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安的性关系只存在于青春期，在此之后，年长者作为爱者，年轻者作为被爱者，尽管如此，并没有直接的确切证据说明亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安存在过一段性关系。

The former assumption has persisted to the present day, with writers of fiction such as Mary Renault and the film director Oliver Stone among its proponents, as well as modern historians such as Paul Cartledge, who says: "Rumour had it—and rumour was for once surely correct—that he [Hephaestion] and Alexander had once been more than just good friends." Aelian takes the latter view when he uses just such an expression when describing the visit to Troy: "Alexander laid a garland on Achilles' tomb and Hephaestion on Patroclus', indicating that he was Alexander's eromenos, as Patroclus was of Achilles."

前一种假设一直持续到今天，作家玛丽·雷诺和导演奥利弗·斯通都是支持者，以及一些现代历史学家比如保罗·卡特里奇等认为：“有传闻说——至少这一次传闻是正确的——他（赫菲斯蒂安）和亚历山大绝不仅仅是最好的朋友。”埃里安在描述特洛伊的拜访时采用了后一种观点：“亚历山大在阿克琉斯的墓上放了一个花环，而赫菲斯蒂安的花环放在了帕特克洛斯墓上；这表明他是亚历山大的被爱者，就像帕特克洛斯是阿克琉斯的被爱一样。”（译注：这个观点有一定问题，因为被爱者普遍是年纪较小的一方，而帕特克洛斯年长于阿克琉斯，但这个爱与被爱的关系从古希腊争论到了今天都没有定论。）

However, what was the case in Athens was not necessarily the case in Macedon. As Robin Lane Fox says, "... descendants of the Dorians were considered and even expected to be openly homosexual, especially among their ruling class, and the Macedonian kings had long insisted on their pure Dorian ancestry." This was no fashionable affectation; this was something that belonged at the heart of what it was to be Dorian, and therefore Macedonian, and had more in common with the Theban Sacred Band than with Athens. In light of this, it is not surprising that there are many indications that their sexual relationship was indeed lifelong. Lucian, writing in his book On Slips of the Tongue describes an occasion when Hephaestion's conversation one morning implied that he had been in Alexander's tent all night, and Plutarch describes the intimacy between them when he tells how Hephaestion was in the habit of reading Alexander's letters with him, and of a time when he showed that the contents of a letter were to be kept secret by touching his ring to Hephaestion's lips. Diogenes of Sinope, in a letter written to Alexander when he was a grown man, accuses Alexander of being "... ruled by Hephaestion's thighs."

然而，雅典模式并不一定代表了马其顿的情况。正如罗宾·莱恩·福克斯所说：“……多里安人的后裔被认为是公开的同性恋者，尤其是统治阶级，而马其顿国王长期宣称自己是纯正的多里安后裔。”这不是一种假装的时尚行为；而是属于多里安人的核心部分，因此，马其顿人相较于雅典和底比斯圣邦有着更多的共同点。鉴于这个原因，并不奇怪会有许多迹象表明两人的性关系是终身存在的。琉善（注：希腊修辞学家和讽刺诗人）在他的《对话集》一书中描述过，赫菲斯蒂安在一次谈话中暗示他整晚都待在亚历山大的帐篷里，普鲁塔克（注：希腊历史家）在书中描述赫菲斯蒂安是如何养成和亚历山大一起阅读亚历山大信件的习惯的，他写道，亚历山大需要赫菲斯蒂安对信件内容保密时会让他亲吻自己的戒指。锡诺普的第欧尼根在一封写给成年后的亚历山大的信中，指责亚历山大是“……被赫菲斯蒂安大腿控制了。”

No other circumstance shows better the nature and length of their relationship than Alexander's overwhelming grief at Hephaestion's death. As Andrew Chugg says, "... it is surely incredible that Alexander's reaction to Hephaestion's death could indicate anything other than the closest relationship imaginable." The many and varied ways, both spontaneous and planned, by which Alexander poured out his grief are detailed below. In the context of the nature of their relationship however, one stands out as remarkable. Arrian says that Alexander "... flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his Companions."

再没有任何情况能说明他们之间深厚而长远的感情了，当赫菲斯蒂安死的时候，亚历山大被剧烈的悲痛击败了。正如安德鲁·查格所言：“……亚历山大在赫菲斯蒂安死亡后的反应令人不敢相信，除了可以想象的最亲密关系外还能是什么呢？”亚历山大用了各种各样的方式表现他的悲伤，有些是自发的，有些是有计划性的。然而，在他们的关系上一种实质的行为引人注意。阿里安说：“……亚历山大躺在赫菲斯蒂安尸首上，整天躺在那里几乎不停的流泪，他拒绝离开赫菲斯蒂安，直到其他同伴把他强行拖走。”

Such an all-encompassing love often leaves little room for other affections. Hephaestion was the best friend of Alexander, his king and his commanding officer, so it is not surprising that we only hear of several other close friendships or attachments in his life. There is no evidence, however, that he was anything but popular and well liked among the group of Alexander's close friends and Companions who had grown up together, and worked well together for so many years. It is possible that he was closest to Perdiccas, because it was with Perdiccas that he went on the mission to take Peuceolatis and bridge the Indus. By that time, as Alexander's effective second-in-command, he could doubtless have chosen any officer he cared to name. They accomplished everything they set out to do with great success, which indicates that the two of them worked well together, and that Hephaestion found the irrepressible Perdiccas a congenial companion. It is notable that their two cavalry regiments in particular were selected by Alexander for the dangerous crossing of the river Hydaspes before the battle with the Indian king, Porus. On that occasion superb teamwork would have been of paramount importance.

这样一种无所不包的爱往往给其他感情留下了很少的一点空间。赫菲斯蒂安是亚历山大最好的朋友、君王、指挥官，因此也不并奇怪在赫菲斯蒂安的一生中只听闻有很少的几个密友或随从。然而没有任何证据表明，赫菲斯蒂安在亚历山大的伙伴和密友中很受欢迎，即使他们一起长大，一起工作了那么多年。有可能他和佩尔狄卡斯的关系比较亲近，因为在攻打Peuceolatis和在印度河架桥时，赫菲斯蒂安都是和佩尔狄卡斯一起率军。那个时候，作为亚历山大的实权二把手，毫无疑问他可以自由选择自己喜欢的军官合作。他们成功的完成了所有任务，这表明他们合作的很好，并且赫菲斯蒂安发现不屈的佩尔狄卡斯是个意气相投的好伙伴。值得注意的是，在横渡危险的希达斯皮斯河和印度国王波罗斯战斗之前，亚历山大选择的是他们两率领的骑兵团。在这种危急关头，高效的团队合作至关重要。

It would be wrong to imply that Hephaestion was universally liked or admired however. Outside the close-knit coterie of the Macedonian high command he had his enemies. This is clear from Arrian's comment about Alexander's grief: "All writers have agreed that it was great, but personal prejudice, for or against both Hephaestion and Alexander himself, has coloured the accounts of how he expressed it."

然而，有暗示说明赫菲斯蒂安不被普遍喜爱或被欣赏。在马其顿高级将领的亲密小圈子外他也有敌人。这一点可以清楚地从阿里安记载的亚历山大的悲伤中看出：“所有作家都认为这是伟大的，但有很多偏见，关于赫菲斯蒂安和亚历山大的关系以及对于他本人的，都对描述他这个人产生了不可避免的影响。”

Yet given the factions and jealousies that arise in any court and that Hephaestion was supremely close to the greatest monarch the western world had yet seen, it is remarkable how little enmity he inspired. Arrian mentions a quarrel with Alexander's secretary Eumenes but, because of a missing page in the text, the greater part of the detail is missing, leaving only the conclusion that something persuaded Hephaestion, though against his will, to make up the quarrel. However, Plutarch, who wrote about Eumenes in his series of Parallel Lives, mentions that it was about lodgings and a flute-player, so perhaps this was an instance of some deeper antagonism breaking out into a quarrel over a triviality. What that antagonism might have been, it is not possible to know, but someone with the closeness to the king of a secretary might well have felt some jealousy for Hephaestion's even greater closeness.

不过考虑到宫廷各派系之间的内讧和猜忌，相比赫菲斯蒂安和这位西方世界所见的最伟大的君主之间无上的亲密关系，他所激发的非凡敌意显得微不足道。阿里安提到过一次和亚历山大的私人秘书欧迈尼斯之间的一次争吵，但由于文本中缺失的一页，大部分细节都缺失了，只留下了一个结果，有人劝服了赫菲斯蒂安，尽管违背了他自身的意愿，但这次争吵最终达成了和解。然而普鲁塔克在他的《并行线》一书中写欧迈尼斯时，提到这就像一个归宿和吹笛手之间的一种深层对抗，在一次琐碎的争吵中爆发出的矛盾。（注：西方文化中吹笛人有引诱者的衍生义，但lodgings蕴含的深层含义我真的不知道。）这种敌对从何而起，不可能知道，但一个和国王关系密切的人很明显会对赫菲斯蒂安拥有的更亲密关系感到嫉妒。

In only one instance is Hephaestion known to have quarrelled with a fellow officer and that was with Craterus. In this instance it is easier to see that resentment might have been felt on both sides, for Craterus was one of those officers who vehemently disliked Alexander's policy of integrating Greek and Persian, whereas Hephaestion was very much in favour. Plutarch tells the story: "For this reason a feeling of hostility grew and festered between the two and they often came into open conflict. Once on the expedition to India they actually drew their swords and came to blows ...". Alexander, who also valued Craterus highly as a most competent officer, was forced to intervene and had stern words for both. It is a measure of how high feelings were running over this contentious issue that such a thing should have happened and also an indication of how closely Hephaestion identified Alexander's wishes with his own. Hephaestion gave perhaps the ultimate proof of this in the summer of 324 BC, when he accepted as his wife Drypetis, daughter of Darius and sister to Alexander's own second wife Stateira. Of his short married life nothing is known, except that at the time of Alexander's own death, eight months after Hephaestion's, Drypetis was still mourning the husband to whom she had been married for only four months.

只有一个可知的例子说明赫菲斯蒂安和同事之间发生过争吵，是和克拉特鲁斯。在这个事件中很容易看出双方都有怨恨情绪，克拉特鲁斯是强烈反对亚历山大那些整合希腊人和波斯人政策的军官之一，而赫菲斯蒂安则很赞成这些政策。普罗塔克讲述了这个故事：“出于这个原因，敌对的感觉在两人之间变得越来越明显，他们经常陷入公开的冲突中。在一次前往印度的探险中，他们甚至拔剑相对……”克拉特鲁斯作为一名最能干的高级军官，备受亚历山大看重，因此，亚历山大被迫介入此事进行干预调停，并给与了双方严肃的斥责。在一件本来就有争议的事情上，有一个迹象可以衡量赫菲斯蒂安是如何通过自己的方式去实现亚历山大的梦想的。公元前324年夏天，赫菲斯蒂安证明了这一点，他娶了身为大流士的女儿和亚历山大第二任妻子斯塔蒂拉的妹妹的德莉比娣丝。后人对赫菲斯蒂安短暂的婚姻生活一无所知，只除了一件事，在他死后八个月，亚历山大追随他而去之后，德莉比娣丝依旧在哀悼自己刚结婚四个月的丈夫。

For Alexander to marry a daughter of Darius made good political sense, allying himself firmly with the Persian ruling class, but for Hephaestion to marry her sister shows the high esteem in which Alexander held him, bringing him into the royal family itself. They became brothers-in-law, and yet there was more to it than that. Alexander, says Arrian "... wanted to be uncle to Hephaestion's children ...". Thus it is possible to imagine Alexander and Hephaestion hoping that their respective offspring might unite their lines and that, ultimately, the crown of Macedon and Persia might be worn by one who was a descendant of them both.

对于亚历山大来说，和大流士的女儿结婚具有很好地政治意义，意味着他将坚定地和波斯统治阶层联系在一起，但对于赫菲斯蒂安来说，和斯塔蒂拉的妹妹结婚则是一种表示对亚历山大崇高敬意的方式，亚历山大用这个方法将赫菲斯蒂安带入了皇室家族。他们成为了真正的非血缘兄弟，当然不只有这个意义。阿里安说亚历山大“……想成为赫菲斯蒂安孩子的叔叔。”因此我们可以想见，亚历山大和赫菲斯蒂安希望他们的后代可以分别统治他们的军团，最终，马其顿和波斯的王冠将会戴在同时流有两个人血脉的后代头上。（注：意思是他们是为了创造出一个拥有双方血脉的孩子统治这片疆域。）