Alexander as Herakles

Alexander the Great likely was the model for a series of gold coins depicting "Apollo." Other kings of Macedon issued their own "Herakles" coins. This is my Alexander as Herakles tetradrachm. It is a posthumous issue.

 

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Your scans are still too small to see much of anything about your coins. This could be a posthumous Babylon issue, though the reverse is pretty rough, and that combined with the small images makes attribution difficult. The obverse looks attractive, despite the central scratch. These are interesting coins...

 

Here's a couple of mine. Sadly (as expressed elsewhere) trying to scan three dimensional items like Alex tet's can be tricky at the best of times.

The first one has some graphiti in the top left field reverse. The second (from Temnos mint I believe) seems to have been `smoothed' on the reverse. Still a viable collector coin none the less.

 

For attribution, as long as the scans are large enough in terms of pixel size, it doesn't matter much if you're using a scanner rather than a digital camera. The latter are much better at portraying nuances of a coin, but for attribution purposes, a scan is fine.

Your second coin looks to be Price 1681, Temnos, c. 188-170 BC.

 

Bang on.

What's your take on the first?

Ian

 

That would take a lot more time to find, since you haven't provided a mint. The reverse symbol is is a caduceus, and at least ten Alexander mints struck tets with this symbol in the reverse left field. Take a look around Wildwinds and CoinArchives to see if you can come up with something first.

 

The `Alpha Ro' monogram under the throne signifies Arados mint (or so I have been led to believe). I had thought the coin to be circa 325 bc but I have never been 100% sure on that.

I have never been able to fathom the significance of the caduceus on the coin. As you say, it is typical of a number of mints (Tarsos and sardes being just two). Any ideas on that?

 

Your first coin, according to Price, is a possible liftetime issue, meaning it's not clear whether or not it was minted during or shortly after the life of Alexander: Arados, c. 328-320 BC, Price 3332. The mint control symbols on these coins, such as the cadeceus, don't necessarily have any special significance relating to the city in which they were minted. Many undoubtedly were just marks of individual mint magistrates to signify which coins they were responsible for.

 

Yep. Bang on again.

I don't know very much about these Alexander issues. It's a vast subject area and an interesting one.

Is there any book(s) that deals with these insignia that you know of? (Not that i'm going to rush out and get it, but I may just happen upon it one day).

 

Price is the best Alexander reference. But I don't think anybody can explain the meanings of the thousands of different mint control marks on these coins.

 

Searching the ANS library at www.amnumsoc.org yields 31 books. The one I have is NL110,GREEK, 1983} 0124 THOMPSON, MARGARET. Alexander's Drachm Mints I: Sardes and Miletus. (Numismatic Studies No. 16) New York, The American Numismatic Society 1983. 98 pp. illus. <<<This is a detailed and somewhat amended sequel to a preliminary report published in collaboration with Alfred Bellinger (Greek Coins in the Yale Collection, IV: A Hoard of Alexander Drachms. [Yale Classical Studies Vol. 14] 1955). The gold, silver and bronze issues of the two Asia Minor mints, struck under Alexander and his immediate successors (ca. 330-300), are arranged in chronological sequence on the basis of die linkage and hoard evidence. A special section analyzes the deposits in which these coins were found and suggests some changes in burial dates. (Author)


Granted that this only deals with two mints and only for drachms. However, it is a starting point and it does point to the problem of there being no over-arching catalog.

I am currently in Calgary. This morning, I spoke at the Nickle Arts Museum conference "Coinage and Identiies in the Ancient World." My topic was Alexander as Herakles.

Yesterday, one of the attendees suggested that the control marks were just that. Alexander did not have "hundreds" of mints but perhaps a dozen or fewer. His point was that the tools of a celator could be carried in a box, but that the Mint itself was an industrial enterprise, a very different matter entirely.

I attributed my Alexander tetradrachm to Cilicia based on three examples in the ANS collection with the same monogram in a wreath, a detail that did not show up in the scans, unfortunately.

 

Thanks. I suspected that might be the case. Plenty of scope for someone to do the research and discovery at some point. Not me however. Too many bills to pay.

 

I've come across a few of Margaret Thompson's works and have (in general) been impressed. I haven't read anything of hers that is quite so focused as that though and I suspect it would be a bit of a slog to read (?). I'm afraid i'm not quite that well motivated. Maybe if I had a few more Alex tet's than I do.....or if I even had some in close proximity that I could study....

To be honest, one of the problems of being a `generalist' is that your attention units tend to get splattered across the universe of coins rather than maintaining an integral focus on a particular subject area. That's my failing perhaps, but it is also a strength too on occasion. ;-)

I knew it was a tall order, but even after 2,300 years there still isn't (as Reid aptly says) an `over arching' text that details the significance (or lack of as the case may well be) of these ancient privy marks. As to the chap you were talking to regarding the number of mints.....interesting hypothesis, but the idea of a roving band of monayers (the other side of the theory?) given the distances involved, doesn't seem (on the face of it) to be a particularly feasible proposition. Its worth considering further none the less.

 

Thompson's book says nothing in response to Ian's question -- the meanings of the thousands of different mint control marks on Alexander's coins. As far as suggesting that Alexander had only a dozen or fewer mints, why not suggest that he had help from Martians in defeating the Persians. The evidence is the same for both (nonexistent). Likewise with the statement you made earlier that it's obvious that Alexander placed his own portrait on all of his lifetime silver imperial coinage.

You can suggest anything you want, you or anybody can make all the "creative" inferences you want. You may convince a few collectors with your "new paradigm," but you won't change numismatic knowledge, which is based on evidence, on solid scholarship. You won't convince David Sear, Wayne Sayles, and the others who are professionals, who know the literature, who have read the arguments, who conduct or follow the die studies, the investigations of hoard evidence, all the rest.

It's scholarship vs. pseudoscience. Erich Von Daniken was a *very* provocative thinker too.

 

Actually, I would have thought that Alexander would have counted on the support of his fellow deity Ares, the Greek name for the god of war, during his conquests. As we all know, the Roman name for the god of war was `Mars'. So in a sense, there is a good case for saying that he (Alexander) was `Mars' assisted. I'm not sure if Mars had any little helpers from the planet of the same name however. I suspect not. ;-)

 

It does identify the "mint" marks used, in those two cities. As noted, no one book lays them all out. This could help with some of the problem. The Herakles coin I posted here has the same monogram in a wreath attributed to Cilicia in the ANA collection. Does that attribute the coin? Perhaps so, perhaps not but we must start somewhere.

In fact, it is commonly accepted by authorities that evidence points to some mints producing coins for other mints. The idea that there were only "a dozen or so" mints is challenging, and it comes from someone else. I cannot defend it. I noted it because it does broadly explain some of the mintmarks, control marks etc. In other words, some mints produced coins for other towns. That is all. Personally, it is easy for me to believe that the hundreds of Greek towns striking coins continued to do so in the wake of Alexander. Challenged by this new idea, I can see that it solves at least one problem: explaining the plethora of mintmarks that are not associated with cities.

The paper I presented was subjected to peer review. Among the other speakers were Andrew Meadows of the British Museum and Shailendra Bhandare of the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford). If the idea that Alexander appears on the coins issued by Alexander were not creditable, I would not have been accepted for the program. Not "everyone" agrees with Ann Zakelj and me on this, and neither does "everyone" disagree with this theory.

It has gone a bit farther than that.

 

I believe it's time for someone to take the high road here.

This was a very educational thread, but it seems to be going down hill fast.

 

I think there is still some scope for the `educational' context if peop's can keep their cool.

I think the concept of there being only a handful of mints churning out Alex coins is actually a bit unsupportable for a number of good reasons (logistics, security, and simple economics being just a few).

However the idea of there being an imposed system and hierarchy of monayers responsible for (for example) die production and control as well as general `quality control' for a geographical grouping of mints is perhaps more realistic and supportable as a concept and perhaps worth giving some further consideration to. After all it is far easier to send a monayer to a town to supervise (or even perform) the work than it is to send tons of metal to a central mint (and back again in the form of coinage). I would have thought that someone somewhere would already have researched these factors and possibilities, but apparently not. Maybe they have but there simply isn't enough raw data to make extrapolations from. I don't know.

We do know that (pre Alexander) certain engravers were in demand and that they travelled between Greek city states to provide their services and designs. Someone somewhere in Alexandrian times must have been running with the concept of die standards and `quality control' otherwise we would not have the (relative) consistency of the coinage that we see around us.

From my viewpoint it just goes to show how much we have yet to `discover' about the internal workings of the vast empire that was Alexander's.

Ian

 

I hope you're right.

 

You can't use a book about Alexander coins of two mints to learn about the mint marks of Alexander coins in general, which were minted from 82 different cities, 26 during his lifetime, according to Price. You can't do this *even* if you buy into the wild suggestion by someone else, unsupported by any evidence, that he minted coins from only about a dozen cities. About the latter, what is commonly recognized to have happened was that some engravers traveled, just as everyone associated with Alexander's campaigns traveled. This doesn't mean that the coins of, say, Babylon and Susa were only minted in one of these cities and that you need to decrease the number of cities that consequently minted Alexander coinage. It means that at least some of the coins minted at both cities were engraved by the same hand.

I have no idea what you said in your talk, how much you corrected it from what you wrote in your Celator article, which you continued to defend for month upon month after its publication despite all the evidence against it. I won't subjugate people here to all the details, especially Jody526, who doesn't seem to like any of this at all. But I will say, to recap, that every bona fide numismatist writing in any detail about the coinage of Alexander the Great over the past 50 years disagreed with your position that it's obvious that Alexander put his own image on all of his lifetime silver imperial coins, and that both David Sear (in the Numismatist) and Wayne Sayles (in Moneta-L) disagreed with it very recently, as have others.

The one incontrovertible piece of evidence against it, of many pieces of evidence against it, is that the same Herakles image that appeared on most this coinage appeared on previous Macedonian coinage, minted by previous Macedonian rulers, a fact you can't help but notice by looking at ... coins, a fact that you failed to discuss or even mention in your article. The reason, again, that this Herakles image was used on these coins was that the Macedonian royal line, the Argead dynasty, believed it was descended from Herakles. It only follows that Alexander's choice of this Herakles image, after he assumed power, was a proclamation that he was assuming his rightful place.

Perhaps you could discuss your views on this now. I previously asked how you could explain how Alexander could have put his own image on coins before he was born. You steadfastly refused to answer this question, aside from suggesting that people borrow a video of some talk you gave or hunt down some little coin club journal article you wrote if they wanted to learn your views. So let me ask you this again in this forum, since you've again brought up this issue in this forum, in hope that you'll answer it in this forum. But I'll try to be more gentle this time: How can you reconcile that facts that the same young Herakles image, with the same square face, high cheekbones, and dull eyes, which you say is obviously Alexander himself, appeared on coins of Alexander's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather?