Silver tetradrachm of Lysimachus, c.305-281 B.C., Silver
Weight: 17.25g
The British Museum, London
|
#HOCW41: Coin with portrait of Alexander. From Lampsecus (Lapseki), Turkey. Circa 305–281 BCE.1/3/2017 Unknown Silver tetradrachm of Lysimachus, c.305-281 B.C., Silver Weight: 17.25g The British Museum, London With this coin, we come at last to Alexander III of Macedon, or, as he is more commonly known, Alexander the Great: one of the most famous figures of classical antiquity, whose conquests in the east both changed the face of the Greek world and shaped the later Roman empire. This coin in fact comes from after his time – Alexander died in 323 BCE in Babylon, a date which is often heralded (quite artificially) as the end of the classical period in Greece and the start of what we now call the 'Hellenistic age' – and was minted between 305 and 281 BCE; but its obverse (the top image) quite clearly shows a portrait of Alexander. He is depicted, as he often is in both sculpture and on coins, with a limpid, upwards turning gaze, full mouth and tousled hair; the horns of Zeus Ammon on his head indicate both his divine lineage (his mother Olympias was said to have slept with Zeus) and his status as chosen ruler of the gods. It was minted by one of Alexander's successors in the kingdoms into which his conquests were subsequently split, Lysimachus: we can see his name stamped across the reverse, Lysimachou basileōs, "[the coin of] Lysimachus the king". This was a trend which was to continue through the Hellenistic period and across the newly founded Greek kingdoms from Greece all the way across Turkey through Iran into Afghanistan, and which marked the period of the Diadochoi or "successors" of Alexander. The branding of their coins both with images of Alexander, and with the likenesses of the "successors" themselves, was a key propaganda strategy and was one of their central legacies to the later Roman emperors, who employed the same method to spread their images across the empire.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorEmily Hauser is a classicist and researcher at Harvard and author of historical fiction recovering the lost women of the ancient world, including FOR THE MOST BEAUTIFUL and FOR THE WINNER. Archives
June 2018
Categories
All
|