September 29th 2021.
Upcoming club
meetings:
Monday 4th October
·
Gibraltar By Alastair Mackay.
Monday 1st November.
Monday 6th December.
·
Winter Bourse and
Member's Evening
Meetings are held
at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
Potential new
members
Please note that we
have invited a number of potential new members to the
October meeting. If you see someone you dont recognize, please ask them to
talk to either myself or Peter. These are people who contacted the club whilst
we were having Zoom meetings.
September Meeting
John opened the meeting with twenty people in
attendance, including four dealer tables. He congratulated members and also the speaker Dr. Volker Heuchert
for turning up. It seems we have come out the other side of the pandemic in
very good health and we can now look forward to getting on with the new normal.
The only downside was that in all the time since our last physical meeting we
have not had a single volunteer to relieve the current Committee members.
In other news, the church has
told us that, for a limited time, the
six car parking spaces at the front of the Church will be available for use. We
estimate that we actually need about fifteen spaces so
the committee will be thinking about the best way to allocate the spaces to
members.
John then introduced the
Speaker for the evening, Volker Heuchert, Curator of Greek and Roman
Provincial Coins at the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean to give us a talk
on Hellenistic Ruler Portraits.
The
talk went a fair way to describing the transition between obverse portrayals of
gods and symbols to the portrayal of a deified man, and then to an actual
living person. The context of the talk was the conquests of Alexander the Great
and the orientalising of coin design to coin ruler portraits and involve a
major change in (Hellenistic) coin iconography.
The Greek
inheritance of Philip II and Alexander (his son) was respect for traditional
gods: particularly key civic (patron) deities like Athena on coins of Athens,
and national deities like Zeus on Macedonian royal coinage
Exposure
to Persian culture introduced Alexander to coinage with images of their great
kings on gold Darics and silver Sigloi. They were depictions of how the kings
wanted to be seen - great Persian warrior kings conveying ideas about
kingship but not personalised to a particular ruler. The
influence on Hellenistic ruler portraiture was probably limited, with no
obvious direct continuity. Rather Hellenistic ruler portraiture developed out
of the Macedonian tradition: Philip & Alexander and the posthumous
Alexander portraits. |
Gold Daric |
That
said, there are Images of Alexander the Great on coins in his lifetime, for
example: Hierapolis Bambyce (North Syria), dated to
c. 333 325 BC, with a lion walking left and Alexander on a horse, his name in
Aramaic.
Following
Alexanders death in 323BC, his empire was divided and sub-divided with two joint
rulers (in name only): Alexander's half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus and Alexanders unborn son with Roxane, Alexander IV. But
the real power rested with the Regent Perdikkas
(Asia), and Antipater (Greece and Macedonia). Below them a
number of satraps were created (e.g., Ptolemy in Egypt). But the
strength of his memory and the instability of his successors led to the use of
deified portrait in place of the traditional Heracles on their coinage.
|
|
Posthumous
Alexander portrait and Athena for Greeks & Macedonian mercenaries |
Lysimachus,
Introduced c. 297/6 in response to Ptolemys Alexander coinage |
The taboo
was abandoned by Ptolemy! in what was probably the first coin portrait of living
Hellenistic ruler. Minted in Alexandria, c. 298 BC.
Obverse:
Portrait of Ptolemy I wearing diadem and aegis Reverse:
Deified Alexander in elephant quadriga The coin
combines realistic and ideal elements. It is partly modelled on posthumous
Alexander but also distinctly different. It still hints at the divine
symbols as expressions of extraordinay power of Hellenistic monarchs but,
overall, potrays an experienced, powerful, heroic king. |
|
The
secular designs for rulers became popular through Asia Minor and in due course
found its way to the Roman series following the breakdown of the Roman Republic
150 years later. In summary, the new designs were realistic, not idealized,
middle aged (and experienced) not youthful, showing dynastic continuity not
charismatic individuality of the current ruler, divine attributes not human,
and heroic military leader rather than civic achievements. This is the
tradition monarchs still follow.
Our
thanks go to Dr. Heuchert
for a very informative talk.
Future Events
·
Spink, Southampton
Row, London September 30th (British Tokens, Tickets and Passes)
·
Birmingham Coin Fair - National Motorcycle museum October 6th.
Past Events
10 years ago - Tony Travis talked
on the Siege Coins of Charles I
20 years ago Short talks by club members
50 years ago
Numismatics and the Wine Trade Peter Clayton