Chuds are upset because Netflix says ancient gayreeks were homogays

Yeah no they were just really good buds!

Hephaestion died suddenly in October 324 BCE, and his death plunged his close friend Alexander the Great into grief. Alexander mourned Hephaestion for days, refused food, and cut his hair. He then organized an extravagant funeral for his friend in Babylon

-Alexander personally drove the funeral carriage

-Alexander ordered the sacred flame in a temple to be put out, an act usually reserved for the death of the Great King himself

-Alexander held games and festivals in Hephaestion's honor

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Arrian states that all his sources agree that "… for two whole days after Hephaestion's death Alexander tasted no food and paid no attention in any way to his bodily needs, but lay on his bed now crying lamentably, now in the silence of grief." Alexander ordered a period of mourning throughout the empire, and Arrian tells us that "Many of the Companions, out of respect for Alexander, dedicated themselves and their arms to the dead man …" The army, too, remembered him; Alexander did not appoint anyone to take Hephaestion's place as commander of the Companion cavalry; he "… wished Hephaestion's name to be preserved always in connexion with it, so Hephaestion's Regiment it continued to be called, and Hephaestion's image continued to be carried before it."

Alexander sent messengers to the oracle at Siwa, to ask if Amon would permit Hephaestion to be worshipped as a god. When the reply came, saying he might be worshipped not as a god, but as a divine hero, Alexander was pleased, and "… from that day forward saw that his friend was honoured with a hero's rites."He saw to it that shrines were erected to Hephaestion's memory, and evidence that the cult took hold can be found in a simple votary plaque now in Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, inscribed, "To the Hero Hephaestion".

Hey, he's just my buddy but can we maybe worship him as a god?

Hephaestion was given a magnificent funeral. Its cost is variously given in the sources as 10,000 talents or 12,000 talents. It is difficult to give a modern equivalent for such a huge amount, but we know that in Hephaestion's time, the daily wage of a skilled worker was two or three drachmas. Today, in western Europe, 2008, that would be between £50 and £100, so the lowest possible value for 1 drachma in modern terms is £25. We know there were 6,000 drachmas in a talent, so even at the most conservative estimate, Hephaestion's funeral would have cost £1,500,000,000. Alexander himself drove the funeral carriage part of the way back to Babylon, with some of the driving entrusted to Hephaestion's friend Perdiccas. At Babylon, funeral games were held in Hephaestion's honour. The contests ranged from literature to athletics, and 3,000 competitors took part, the festival eclipsing anything that had gone before, both in cost and in numbers taking part. Plutarch says that Alexander planned to spend ten thousand talents on the funeral and the tomb. He employed Stasicrates, "… as this artist was famous for his innovations, which combined an exceptional degree of magnificence, audacity and ostentation …", to design the pyre for Hephaestion.

Just a small multi-billion dollar donation

The pyre was sixty metres high, square in shape, and built in stepped levels. The first level was decorated with two hundred and forty ships with golden prows, each of these adorned with armed figures, and with red banners filling the spaces between. On the second level were torches, with snakes at the base, golden wreaths in the middle, and at the top, flames surmounted by eagles. The third level showed a hunting scene, and the fourth a battle of centaurs, all done in gold. On the fifth level, also in gold, were lions and bulls, and on the sixth, the arms of Macedon and Persia. The seventh and final level bore sculptures of sirens, hollowed out to conceal a choir who would sing a lament. It is possible that the pyre was not burnt, but that it was actually intended as a tomb or lasting memorial; if so, it is likely that it was never completed, as there are references to expensive, uncompleted projects at the time of Alexander's own death.

This is like building the Burj Khalifa and then setting it on fire for your friend's funeral.

One final tribute remained, and it is compelling in its simplicity and in what it reveals about the high esteem in which Hephaestion was held by Alexander. On the day of the funeral, he gave orders that the sacred flame in the temple should be extinguished. Normally, this was only done on the death of the Great King himself.

Put your holy fire burning for centuries or millennia out for fricks sake my friend is dead have some respect.

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