Ἡφαιστίων

ἐπεὶ καὶ αὐτῶ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ ἡ Ἡφαοστίωνος τελευτὴ οὐ σμικρὰ ξυμφορὰ γεγένμτο, ἧς καὶ αὐτὸς Ἀλέξανδρος προαπελθεῖν ἄν δοκεῖ μοι ἐθελῆσαι μᾶλλον ἤ ζῶν πειραθῆωαι, οὐ μεῖον ἤ καί Ἀχιλλέα δοκῶ ἂν ἑλέσθαι προαποθανεῖν Πατρόκλου μᾶλλον ἤ τοῦ θαωάτου αὐτῶ τιμωρόν γενέσθαι.

In fact the death of Hephaestion had proved a great misfortune to Alexander himself, and Alexander, I believe, would have preferred to have gone first himself rather than experience it during his lifetime, just as I think Achilles would have preferred to die before Patroclus rather than to have been the avenger of his death.

--Arrian


I had wondered how diacritic marks were done on the computer and, thanks to this site, it only took me about forty minutes to type that sentence in. (The site also features a bilingual selection from Plato's Phaedrus.)

The quote is from volume two of the Loeb Classical Library printing of Arrian's Anabasis Alexandri/History of Alexander. The Loeb editions are quite nice - all bilingual, with both the original Ancient Greek/Latin and an English translation - though they cost $20 per book.


Quintus Curtius is easier to quote from -- he wrote in Latin. Is longe omnium amicorum carissimus erat regi, cum ipso pariter eductus, secretorum omnium arbiter, libertatis quoque in admonendo eo non alius plus habebat, quod tamen ita usurpabat ut magis a rege permissum quam vindicatum ab eo videretur.

He [Hephaestion] was by far the dearest to the king of all his friends; brought up with him, and the confidant of all his secrets, he also had more freedom than anyone else in admonishing him, a privilege which he nevertheless used in such a manner that it seemed rather to be allowed by the king than claimed by himself . . .