Hellenistic Coin Portraits pg4

The other Successor of Alexander to establish a long-lived but more tumultuous dynasty was Seleukos I, whose main base of power was Syria but whose kingdom at one time or another included most of Alexander's eastern dominions, a vast, ethnically diverse, and unstable territory. In their coin portraits, his successors did not emphasize family resemblance to the extent that the Ptolemies did, but they did settle upon a similar blend of individualization and idealization inspired by the model of Alexander. Seleukos' son and successor, Antiochos I Soter (324-261 B.C.), had a long but troubled reign, and his later coins show him as an older man with deep-set eyes, a long, thin nose, and down-turned mouth (no. 50). The eyes look upward, however, and the arrangement of his hair around the diadem resembles that of Alexander. Demetrios I Soter (187-150 B.C.) attempted to recover the Babylonian territory that had been lost to the Seleukids, which earned him the title Soter or Savior. His later coin portraits show him with the family's prominent nose but otherwise idealized in the manner of Alexander, especially in the hair, which is somewhat longer than his predecessors' and which has the distinctive anastole or central forelock characteristic of Alexander's portraits (no. 51). The early coin portraits of Demetrios II (c. 161-126 B.C.), eldest son of Demetrios I, are the usual clean-shaven, idealized types, but after spending ten years as a hostage of the Parthians he returned to Syria for a second reign, and his portraits from this time show him with the unusual and presumably realistic long hair and beard of Parthian fashion that he had apparently adopted in his years as a captive (no. 52).

The Parthians were one of a number of non-Greek, non-Macedonian peoples in the Seleukid sphere who in many respects resisted the Hellenization so eagerly embraced by Alexander's successors. Beginning in the third century, these minor kingdoms adopted coinage and with it the convention of the ruler portrait on the obverse, but their often remarkably realistic coin portraits stand in sharp contrast to the idealized heads of Alexander's immediate successors. The rulers of the kingdom of Pontos on the Black Sea were Persian in origin, and in their first coin portraits they are depicted with strikingly un-Hellenized features. The portrait of Mithradates III (ruled c. 220-185 B.C.) is one of the most striking in Hellenistic coin portraiture (no. 46). He shares his prominent nose with flaring nostrils, thick-lipped mouth, and sharply sloping forehead with other members of his family, and like them he rejects the Macedonian royal hairstyle and youthfulness. In contrast, his hair is close-cropped, his hairline is receding, and he has a short, unkempt beard and drooping moustache. His brow is deeply furrowed with age. We know so little about the early rulers of Pontos that we have few clues to help us interpret their portraits, but it seems likely that their conscious rejection of Macedonian royal portrait conventions was intended as a sign of independence and as an appeal to their own people. It is therefore all the more striking that the last of the rulers of Pontos, Mithradates VI Eupator (ruled 120-63 B.C.), rejected the realistic tradition of his family for a highly idealized portrait clearly modelled on portraits of Alexander (no. 47). Although over fifty at the time he adopted the type, he appears youthful and clean-shaven, with a wind-blown version of Alexander's tousled hair, and the confident, upward gaze, an image probably based upon the portrait of Alexander on the widely circulated tetradrachms of Lysimachos (no. 45). Unlike his predecessors, whose political and military concerns were largely local, Mithradates VI was a major figure in the late Hellenistic world. He saw himself as the protector of Asia Minor against the Romans, as a heroic new Alexander, an image his coins were designed to spread.

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