In July of 356 BC, Philip II of Macedon was busy besieging Potidaea, in northern Greece. Accompanying him on this trip, as was often the case, the King had brought along the great seers of Macedon, who were charged with giving Philip divinely inspired predictions about the outcome of the battle. Their predictions, however, regarded something else entirely. They predicted that three victories would herald the birth of a son who would be unconquerable. And, in quick succession, three victories came: As Philip prevailed in Potidaea, two messengers arrived: one bore news that Parmenion, one of Philip’s generals, had defeated the Illyrians; the other reported that Philip’s horse had just won the most prestigious race at the Olympic Games (Plutarch Life of Alexander 3.5). Three victories. A third messenger appeared at camp shortly after to tell Philip that his son had been born. Alexander grew up to be an ambitious and voracious conqueror, with ambitions to ‘reach the ends of the world, and okeanos [the sea that surrounded the globe]’ (Justin Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum 12.7.4-5), and he very nearly succeeded. As predicted, Alexander was undefeated in battle; it was not an irresistible enemy which stopped him in his tracks, nor even Alexander’s impending illness. His armies had reached the River Ganges, and were lined up to face the joint might of the Nanda and Gangaridal Empires, when their spirit broke. So far and so long from home, his men begged him to allow them to go back to Macedon. It was on the return journey, as he reached the fabled city of Babylon, that Alexander’s illness – probably malaria or typhoid fever – finally overtook him. With his pregnant wife, Roxane, at his side, Alexander passed away with no heir. Since the sex of the child, and therefore whether he would be a legitimate successor according to Macedon’s system of male primogeniture, was unknown, the throne was passed to the custodianship of Alexander’s mentally incapacitated brother, Philip Arrhidaios, who was considered too weak-minded to be more than a powerless figurehead. Under the regency of Perdiccas, one of Alexander’s generals, rivalries emerged among Alexander’s other close companions. With his birth in 322 BC, Alexander IV ascended to the throne, also under the regency of Perdiccas, who was promptly assassinated, and replaced with the general Antipater. Alexander IV’s reign limped on for some fourteen or so years, before he too was killed, and Alexander the Great’s unprecedented Empire was carved up between rival successors, known as the diadochoi.

The fame of Alexander was such that he is perhaps the most widely-depicted individual from ancient times. In portraits in marble, bronze, other stones, mosaic, and coins, Alexander, and his semi-legendary exploits, were a favourite theme of ancient artists. Not only was Alexander himself a consummate self-promoter, who was careful to present himself in various guises to suit disparate audiences across his Empire, but his successors also sought to portray his image as frequently as possible in order to cement their own dubious claims to legitimacy. The resulting multiplicity of representations demonstrates the various ways in which Alexander was viewed, and wished to be seen, across time and space. Sometimes, for example, he was depicted with the curling ram-horns of Zeus Ammon, the hybridised deity whose bloodline he claimed in order to secure himself as Pharaoh of Egypt. Elsewhere he was depicted as Herakles, his apparent twenty-third great grandfather, through whom his family staked their claim to Greekness. But some features always remained, which we can consider Alexander’s ‘brand’. He was always depicted as youthful, always with flowing curly locks of hair, with wide sympathetic eyes, and high cheekbones.

This portrait of Alexander certainly post-dates his death in 323 BC. During his lifetime, the trend was towards mature portraits of Alexander in his twenties or thirties, with defined musculature and heroic features. It was after his death that a variety of portraits of Alexander as a much younger youth appear. Alexander here is presented perhaps as a teenager, his soft features accentuated by his elaborate curly coiffure. Unlike some of the more programmatic later portraits, this is full of life, and replete with naturalistic details: the dimples in his cheeks, the smooth skin, the slight bulge of the eyelids, the curvature of the ear. His guise of religious awe, and the twist of his neck, are characteristic of portraits of Alexander from all eras. These features assimilate him to the youthful god Apollo, who was taken by Alexander as a model of artistic and martial achievement. This portrait therefore bears a close resemblance to that of Alexander as Apollo from Magnesia, now in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul (inv. no. 709), as well as to the Rondanini portrait (Munich Glyptothek 298), an ancient copy of the only confirmed contemporary portrait of Alexander as a teenager, from a commemorative statue group by Euphranor depicting the famous Battle of Chaironeia. The dating of portraits of Alexander is a somewhat difficult task. Most portraits of the Hellenistic Period were in Bronze; it was only later that they were transferred to marble, some by Hellenistic and most by Roman copyists. The bronze originals are almost all lost to time, having often been melted down or else destroyed by the ravages of the ages. Marble copies are therefore hard to date stylistically, since even Roman copyists sought to maintain the essence of the Hellenistic original. While this piece is clearly ancient, ascribing a more exact date relies on a subjective sense of the quality of the work. On the whole, though this is not always the case, Roman copies are inferior in sculptural and artistic quality to Hellenistic. In this case, the quality of the work indicates a more probable Hellenistic than Roman date.

References: this portrait bears resemblances to those in Munich (Glyptothek 298) and Istanbul (Archaeological Museum 709).