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So, is it really Alexander or just Herakles?
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<p>[QUOTE="Terence Cheesman, post: 7411698, member: 86498"]I guess the question that @SeverusAlexander is asking is did whether or not ancient die cutters incorporated the features of Alexander into their designs. This is a problem in that there has been a continuous effort to see the features of Alexander in everything from the Herakles head coinage in the name of Alexander to the head of Helios on the coinage of Rhodes. The central problem is the question of intent. </p><p> To illustrate one need only look at the mathematical question of ... If you had an infinite number of monkeys on an similar number of typewriters would you end up with Shakespeare's play Hamlet. A similar question could be posed given that there are probably tens of thousand of dies do any of them have the features of Alexander? I guess it is entirely possible however one has to be very careful about whether or not the image was meant to convey that Alexander in one way shape or form the embodiment of Herakles. </p><p> One coin that suggests that the Herakles head coinage of Alexander was consider to be an image of him is this tetradrachm minted by Agathokles of Baktria circa 185-180 BC Triton XI Lot 358 January 7 2008[ATTACH=full]1288319[/ATTACH]<span style="color: #ff0000">THIS is NOT my COIN </span>It is clear that the inspiration of this coin is that of a standard issue tetradrachm of Alexander. Is this an example of the Herakles head coinage being thought as an image of Alexander? Or is it simply that there was very limited penetration by the portrait coins of Alexander minted by Ptolemy or Lysimachos in this region. Thus this would be all they would have to work with. However what is interesting about this coin is the care to which Alexander is being identified as the "son of Philip" Because of this care one could just as easily make the case that the standard issue in the name of Alexander was not considered to be that of his image. </p><p>I now come to this coin Philip III Av Stater Kolophon 323-319 BC Obv Head of Apollo right laureate Rv. Charioteer driving prancing biga right. Le Rider 93 26 8.53 grms 18 mm Photo by W. Hansen[ATTACH=full]1288324[/ATTACH]Almost invariably this coin is described in the trade "with the features of Alexander" The problem is.... Was this intentional? As far as I can tell this obverse is known from only one die. That would make a reasonably strong case that it wasn't. </p><p> To summarize; While I suspect that there might be some coins with some of the features of Alexander hiding in the corpus of his coinage in order to prove that this was intentional one would have to find that a consistent and exclusive image was maintained over a period of time employing multiple dies.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Terence Cheesman, post: 7411698, member: 86498"]I guess the question that @SeverusAlexander is asking is did whether or not ancient die cutters incorporated the features of Alexander into their designs. This is a problem in that there has been a continuous effort to see the features of Alexander in everything from the Herakles head coinage in the name of Alexander to the head of Helios on the coinage of Rhodes. The central problem is the question of intent. To illustrate one need only look at the mathematical question of ... If you had an infinite number of monkeys on an similar number of typewriters would you end up with Shakespeare's play Hamlet. A similar question could be posed given that there are probably tens of thousand of dies do any of them have the features of Alexander? I guess it is entirely possible however one has to be very careful about whether or not the image was meant to convey that Alexander in one way shape or form the embodiment of Herakles. One coin that suggests that the Herakles head coinage of Alexander was consider to be an image of him is this tetradrachm minted by Agathokles of Baktria circa 185-180 BC Triton XI Lot 358 January 7 2008[ATTACH=full]1288319[/ATTACH][COLOR=#ff0000]THIS is NOT my COIN [/COLOR]It is clear that the inspiration of this coin is that of a standard issue tetradrachm of Alexander. Is this an example of the Herakles head coinage being thought as an image of Alexander? Or is it simply that there was very limited penetration by the portrait coins of Alexander minted by Ptolemy or Lysimachos in this region. Thus this would be all they would have to work with. However what is interesting about this coin is the care to which Alexander is being identified as the "son of Philip" Because of this care one could just as easily make the case that the standard issue in the name of Alexander was not considered to be that of his image. I now come to this coin Philip III Av Stater Kolophon 323-319 BC Obv Head of Apollo right laureate Rv. Charioteer driving prancing biga right. Le Rider 93 26 8.53 grms 18 mm Photo by W. Hansen[ATTACH=full]1288324[/ATTACH]Almost invariably this coin is described in the trade "with the features of Alexander" The problem is.... Was this intentional? As far as I can tell this obverse is known from only one die. That would make a reasonably strong case that it wasn't. To summarize; While I suspect that there might be some coins with some of the features of Alexander hiding in the corpus of his coinage in order to prove that this was intentional one would have to find that a consistent and exclusive image was maintained over a period of time employing multiple dies.[/QUOTE]
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