1

An Unrecognised Representation of Alexander the Great in Several Alexandrian

Coins of Hadrian

By Andrew Chugg MA (Cantab)

Published in The Celator, Vol 15, No 2, February 2001

Introduction

In early August AD130 Hadrian and his retinue arrived in Alexandria to begin his

fateful visit to Egypt. At the end of the year he returned to the city a shattered man,

following the drowning of his favourite, Antinous, in the Nile at the end of October.

Among the most tangible surviving relics of these visits are several commemorative

coin types issued by the Alexandrian mint.

That they do indeed commemorate Hadrian’s arrival is strongly suggested by the

personification or ‘Genius’ of Alexandria depicted greeting the emperor on their

reverses. It is confirmed by the legend ‘LIE’1, which dates the coins to the time of the

emperor’s visits.

Numismatists have generally assumed that the figure of Alexandria is a young woman

and this is the currently accepted view. In particular, the female gender is assigned by

the British Museum Catalogue of the Coins of Alexandria and the Nomes and an

example (type BMC868) is on display in the Museum with this labelling at the present

time. In the following account it will be seen that the reasoning behind this

identification is superficially reasonable. However, it is the objective of this article to

demonstrate that it is also undoubtedly incorrect. Furthermore, it can be shown that

the personification of Alexandria is in fact an unambiguous but hitherto unrecognised

representation of Alexander the Great.

2

Descriptions

The coins at issue are of three basic types: two in bronze (BMC867/8 and

BMC869/70) and one in silver (BMC669). A number of examples are shown in

Figures 1 to 4. Their reverses are succinctly described in the British Museum

Catalogue2:-

‘The arrival of the Emperor Hadrian at Alexandria is commemorated by three types…

[These] are clearly ADVENTI AVG. ALEXANDRIAE types, though strikingly

differing from the treatment of the same or like subjects on the Roman coinage of

Hadrian. In one type (BMC868) the Emperor is represented in a slowly advancing

chariot drawn by four horses, clad in toga and veiled, his right arm upraised, in his left

aquila (eagle), received by Alexandria, clad in a short chiton (tunic), her head covered

with elephant’s skin, her right arm upraised, in her left hand vexillum (a military

standard). In the other type Alexandria, holding vexillum, presents corn to the

Emperor (BMC669), or holding corn in her left kisses the hand of the Emperor

(BMC870).’

The corn symbolises the vital corn supplies shipped from Alexandria to feed Rome.

The BMC description is followed by other modern works, which reproduce images of

these types3,4. However, one 19th century coin dictionary5 differs on the question of

the sex of Alexandria in seeming to describe BMC870:-

‘The genius of Alexandria, or of Egypt in general, is figured in a brass medal of

Hadrian (struck in Egypt) as a man, wearing on his own head the skin of an

3

elephant’s, and holding in his right hand a bundle of corn ears. He takes with his left

hand that of the emperor, and lifts it to his lips, as if to kiss it, in acknowledgement of

Hadrian’s benefits to the city and country. Round the coin is engraved

ALEXANDREA and in the field LIE (Year XV [of the emperor]).’6

Reasons for Previous Identifications

The elephant-scalp motif also occurs in some other coin types of Hadrian minted at

Rome to commemorate his travels. In these issues Africa is personified as a woman

wearing the elephant spoils and either reclining (Figure 5) or kneeling or standing

before the Emperor (Figures 6 and 7). This Roman personification of Africa as a

woman in an elephant-scalp headdress recurs in some other Roman relics, such as a

silver plate from Boscoreale near Pompeii (Figure 8). It is partly by analogy with

these representations of Africa that the figure in the Alexandrian coins has been

assumed to be female.

There is one feature present in some (but not all) of the Alexandrian coins, which

appears to be blatantly feminine. This is the belt or girdle worn by women just

beneath the breasts (e.g. Figure 9). The same word (Zona or ) is used in Greek

and Latin specifically to describe this item of wardrobe. Just such a belt is quite

clearly represented in the examples of the Alexandrian coins shown in Figures 1

(right) and 3. It is perhaps this cincture, which has clinched the female identification

in previous assessments.

4

Reasons for the New Identification

There is also a personification of Alexandria in the Roman ‘travels’ series (Figure 5)

with exactly the same female figure in an identical pose as for the Africa, but bearing

a different set of attributes. In fact this standard female figure is draped with a varying

set of attributes to symbolise a wide range of cities and provinces of the empire for

various members of this coin series (cf. Egypt in Figure 5). Evidently the basic female

manikin was in no way specific to any particular location. Furthermore, the Roman

personifications bear very little resemblance to the Alexandrian figures, except that

there is one Roman type commemorating Hadrian’s arrival in Mauretania (a province

of Roman Africa), where the personification (Figure 10) appears to be a male figure

bearing a vexillum and wearing the African elephant spoils7. These observations

begin to undermine the validity of projecting the female figure in the Roman types

onto the Alexandrian coins, but the convincing evidence for re-interpreting the

Alexandrian figure comes from two groups of Greek and Roman images of Alexander

the Great:-

a) Elephant-Scalp Images of Alexander

This Group is deeply rooted in Ptolemaic Egypt, being based on the elephant-

scalp tetradrachms of Ptolemy Soter, which he minted between about 320 –

305 BC. The earliest types have prominent ram’s horns (Figure 11), but in

later issues these grew less conspicuous (Figure 12). These horns are attributes

of the Egyptian god Ammon and they refer to Alexander’s deification as the

son of Ammon. The elephant spoils are probably an allusion to Alexander’s

victories in India. The King is shown as the conqueror of elephants just as his

putative ancestor, Heracles, is shown wearing the Nemean lion-scalp in

5

Alexander’s own coinage. The Group is augmented by a number of

fragmentary statuettes of which the most complete is the Dattari statuette8

(Figure 13). It was found at Athribis in the Nile Delta and is probably early

Ptolemaic in date. Finally, there is a massive head now in Copenhagen

(Figure 14), but originally from North Africa (Carthage or Utica)9. This is

dated on stylistic grounds to the Antonine period (i.e. roughly contemporary

with Hadrian). Otto Mørkholm10 has provided an intriguing hypothesis

concerning the origin of the elephant-scalp Alexanders:-

‘[The elephant headdress obverse] definitely belongs to the beginning of

Ptolemy’s governorship [of Egypt] and the years 321 BC and 319 BC have

both been suggested. Perhaps it can best be related to the events of 321. In that

year Ptolemy secured for himself the corpse of Alexander the Great… As

possessor of the human relics of Alexander, Ptolemy could establish a state

cult of the dead conqueror… it is tempting to see in the new coin type a

representation of the very cult statue which Ptolemy must have set up. The

relatively high relief of the coin type serves to underline its sculptural

qualities.’

b) Alexander Wearing the Chiton, Chlamys and Persian Girdle

There are only two well-attested sculptures in this group, but one of these is

the very famous representation of the King on the Alexander Sarcophagus

from Sidon (Figure 15) and the attribution of this set of clothing to Alexander

is backed up by considerable literary evidence from the ancient sources, since

it relates to the controversy over the ‘Persianisation’ of his dress. The second

member of this group is the ‘Demetrio’ Alexander (Figure 16), now in

6

Athens11, but believed to have a 1st century BC Egyptian provenance. There is

also a painting from the ‘Kinch’ tomb at Naoussa in Macedon, which depicts a

Macedonian cavalryman in the same garb (Figure 17), though this is not

specifically an image of Alexander. For the significance of the King’s apparel

in these representations it is only necessary to quote the relevant ancient texts:-

‘Alexander… adopted the diadem, the tunic with the central white stripe12, the

sceptre, the Persian girdle (zonam Persicam), and all the royal regalia that

Darius had used’ Epitoma rerum gestarum Alexandri Magni13

‘And then [Alexander] bound the Persian diadem around his head and put on

the chiton with the central white stripe and the Persian girdle

() and everything else except the trousers and the sleeved

jacket.’ Diodorus14

‘Most of it indeed [Alexander] wore all the time: the purple chlamys and

chiton with a white stripe…’ Ephippus of Olynthus15

Evidently the ‘Persian girdle’ adopted by Alexander specifically resembled the belt

worn beneath the breasts by Greek and Roman women. Just such a belt is worn by

Alexander in the Demetrio statuette and on the Alexander Sarcophagus. In both cases

it appears in combination with a chiton and chlamys and this is true also of the figures

in the Alexandrian coins of Hadrian. In fact there is a strong general resemblance

between, for example, the personification of Alexandria in BMC868 (Figure 3) and

the Demetrio Alexander even down to the style of the boots. Ironically, the woman’s

girdle, which had seemed the strongest reason for supposing Alexandria to be female,

turns out to be the decisive reason for identifying him as a representation of

Alexander.

7

Given that the Copenhagen head is probably almost contemporary with Hadrian and

that the Demetrio Alexander has a 1st century BC Egyptian provenance, it is highly

improbable that the designer of the Alexandrian coins of Hadrian could have been

unaware of the associations between Alexander the Great and the attributes he chose

to use in his designs. Even if such curious ignorance were conceivable, then it would

still be extraordinarily unlikely that he should accidentally have merged two such

distinctive groups of attributes in his designs. These are the reasons that it is possible

to be confident that the designer was deliberately producing an image of Alexander

the Great.

The Significance of this Identification

A new representation of Alexander from the ancient world supported by a relatively

firm identification is of significance in itself, since the canon of undisputed images of

Alexander is still of modest size and is likely to remain so. However, there are several

further implications of this identification, which tend to emphasise the importance of

the Hadrian Alexander.

Firstly, the new Alexander provides a link between two previously isolated groups of

images of Alexander. This tends to bolster the authenticity of the members of both

groups and may be especially helpful in the cases of marginal candidates such as the

Dattari statuette.

The new image also adds a novel attribute to the Alexander canon in the form of the

vexillum or military standard. Whereas the corn-sheaf is clearly a reference to

8

Alexandria rather than to Alexander, the vexillum presumably alludes to the military

leadership of the bearer. It may have been inherited from the archetype of the

Demetrio Alexander, since the latter appears originally to have held some staff-like

object in his right hand. This is most readily evident by comparing the stance of the

Demetrio Alexander with that of the Alexander Aigiochos, which also comes from

Alexandria and is now in the British Museum (see Figure 18).

There is a second elephant-scalp coin among the types minted in Roman Alexandria.

This is a billon tetradrachm produced in large numbers under Nero16 (Figure 19). The

head on the reverse of this coin has also been identified as a female personification of

Alexandria, apparently by a backwards extension of the reasoning for the Hadrian

types. However, in the light of the present analysis it should properly be recognised as

a second representation of Alexander in the guise of the Genius of Alexandria.

The new identification tends to support Mørkholm’s hypothesis that the elephant-

scalp types of Ptolemy were based on an archetypal funerary statue of Alexander

commissioned for his tomb, since Hadrian’s designer was probably inspired by an

archetypal elephant-scalp statue of Alexander in combination with the archetype of

the Demetrio statuette.

The coins of Hadrian (and Nero) would appear to be the first explicit representation of

Alexander in the guise of the Genius of Alexandria to be identified. Ammianus

Marcellinus17 refers to a temple of the Genius of Alexandria in a passage describing

the antagonism between the Patriarch Georgius and the Alexandrian mob in about

361AD:-

9

‘And, among other matters, it was said that [Georgius] maliciously informed

Constantius also of this, namely, that all the edifices standing on the soil of the said

city [Alexandria] had been built by its founder, Alexander, at great public cost, and

ought justly to be a source of profit to the treasury. To these evil deeds he added still

another, which soon after drove him headlong to destruction. As he was returning

from the emperor’s court and passed by the splendid temple of the Genius [speciosum

Genii templum], attended as usual by a large crowd, he turned his eyes straight at the

temple, and said: “How long shall this tomb [sepulcrum] stand?” On hearing this,

many were struck as if by a thunderbolt, and fearing that he might try to overthrow

that building also, they devised secret plots to destroy him in whatever way they

could.’

It has been pointed out by D G Hogarth18 and Lily Ross Taylor19 that Georgius’

reference to the Temple of the Genius as a tomb is highly suggestive of the famous

Soma Mausoleum of Alexander that contained the King’s body. Nevertheless P M

Fraser20 has rejected this identification on the grounds that it is the Agathos Daimon,

rather than Alexander, who is properly recognised as the Genius of Alexandria.

Alternatively, Christopher Haas21 has claimed that it is the female personification of

the Tyche of Alexandria that is meant. However, the discovery of explicit

representations of Alexander as the Genius of the city greatly strengthens the view

that Georgius is indeed referring to Alexander’s Mausoleum. If so, this building

survived until at least 361AD. Given that John Chrysostom asserted that Alexander’s

tomb was ‘unknown to his own people’ a few decades later22, the most likely occasion

10

of the destruction of the Soma Mausoleum was the earthquake and tidal wave, which

devastated Alexandria in 365AD23.

With thanks to the staff of Bristol University Library.

Figure 1. BMC669 (left) and BMC870 (right).

Figure 2. Another BMC870

11

Figure 3. BMC868

Figure 4. Another example of BMC870.

Figure 5. Personifications of Egypt, Africa and Alexandria as a reclining woman in a series of coins from Hadrian’s Roman mint.

12

Figure 6. Hadrian and Africa (RESTITVTORI AFRICAE)

Figure 7. Hadrian and Africa (ADVENTVS AVG AFRICAE)

Figure 8. Personification of Africa in a Roman silver plate from Boscoreale.

13

Figure 9. The woman (possibly Olympias?) wears the zona belt.

Figure 10. Mauretania personified as a male figure wearing the elephant headdress

and holding a vexillum (ADVENTVS AVG MAVRETANIAE)

Figure 11. Earliest type of elephant-scalp tetradrachm of Ptolemy.

14

Figure 12. Later elephant-scalp tetradrachm of Ptolemy.

Figure 13. Dattari statuette of Alexander.

15

Figure 14. Copenhagen head of Alexander.

Figure 15. Alexander on the Alexander Sarcophagus.

16

Figure 16. The Demetrio Alexander

Figure 17. Painting of a Macedonian cavalryman from the Kinch tomb at Naoussa.

17

Figure 18. Statuette of Alexander Aigiochos from Alexandria.

Figure 19. Billon tetradrachm of Nero with the Genius of Alexandria on the reverse.

1 LI for type BMC867 2 R S Poole, Catalogue of the Coins of Alexandria and the Nomes (1892, British Museum), lxxxix, 100-101 & pl. XXVII. 3 Alan K Bowman, Egypt After The Pharaohs (British Museum Press, 1986), 205. 4 Evaristo Breccia, Alexandrea Ad Aegyptum (Bergamo, 1922), 308-9. 5 S W Stevenson, C R Smith & F W Madden, A Dictionary of Roman Coins (George Bell & Sons, 1889), 35.

18

6 The left and right hands are interchanged relative to this description on all specimens known to the author. 7 Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. III (1936, British Museum), clxxx. 8 Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; see, for example, Ariel Herrmann and Cornelius Vermeule, The Search for Alexander: An Exhibition (1980, New York Graphic Society), 123, item 46. 9 Blanche R Brown, ‘Art History in Coins: Portrait Issues of Ptolemy I’, Alessandria e il Mondo Ellenistico-Romano: Studi in Onore di Achille Adriani 2 (1984), 407-8. 10 Otto Mørkholm, Early Hellenistic Coinage (1991, Cambridge University Press), 63-4. 11 National Archaeological Museum in Athens; see Andrew Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image & Hellenistic Politics (1993, University of California Press), 338-9 & fig. 144. 12 Darius is depicted wearing the Persian royal white stripe in the Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii. 13 An anonymous 4th century AD text, quoted by Andrew Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image & Hellenistic Politics (1993, University of California Press), 356, item T46. 14 Diodorus Siculus, 17.77.5. 15 Ephippus of Olynthus, quoted by Athenaeus, 12.537E-538B. 16 Erik Christiansen, The Roman Coins of Alexandria (1988, Aarhus University Press). 17 Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 22.11.7. 18 D G Hogarth, ‘Report on Prospects for Research in Alexandria’, Egypt Exploration Fund 1894-5, note 3 on p. 23. 19 Lily Ross Taylor, Classical Philology 22, 1927, 168, note 3. 20 P M Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (1972, Oxford University Press), note 84 to Ch. 1. 21 Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (1997, John Hopkins University Press), 287. 22 John Chrysostom, Homily XXVI on the second epistle of St Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, circa AD400. 23 Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 26.10.15-19 and Sozomenus, Ecclesiastical History, 6.2.