Alexander III of Macedon – the Great – was perhaps the most successful general in human history; a consummate military tactician, a phenomenally astute leader of men, possessed of an extraordinary restless energy. Acceding to the throne at the age of twenty, in a little under twelve years, Alexander had conquered most of the known world, founding an empire that stretched from Greece, Egypt and Libya in the west, through to India in the east. Alexander sought 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. In the end it was not defeat, nor even Alexander’s impending illness, that brought an end to his conquests. His armies were within reach of East Asia when his troops, so long and so far from home, finally refused to go any further. The young king – still only 32 years old – had returned as far as Babylon when, overtaken by a mysterious illness, he died, leaving the Empire in the hands of his mentally handicapped brother, Philip Arrhidaios, and his as-yet unborn child, Alexander IV. His generals, many of whom had been his loyal bodyguards during campaign after campaign, divided the Empire between themselves, each competing over their territory. By the time Alexander IV was fourteen years old, there was open civil war, and the teenage king was assassinated.

This remarkable portrait bust of Alexander depicts the young and restless king as a youth, the epitome of the Classical-Hellenistic ideal of beauty. The facial features are soft, youthful and delicate; his chin is slightly rounded and fleshy, his nose straight and severe, and his lips slightly pursed. His hair, wavy and parted at the centre, reflects both the prevailing style in the Fourth Century BC as well as Alexander’s specific desire to be assimilated to the god Apollo, with whom the King had a special relationship. Indeed, the teenage Alexander may have been the model for images of Apollo on his father Philip II’s coinage. Alexander’s heavily-lidded eyes stare forwards with a brooding beauty, though his overall expression is one of serene detachment. This portrait is composed in almost flawless marble, undoubtedly mined in Greece (Pentelic) or Turkey (Dokimeion), as characterised by the small size of the crystals and the soft, smooth surface of the polished stone. The marble is stained a slight ochre, due to context of preservation and discovery, and the chin has been restored to the face in modern times.

The distinctive portraiture of Alexander was exported around his vast empire, becoming something of a ‘brand’ for the young king. His immediately recognisable image was maintained in the centuries after his death by his successors (known historically by the Greek term diadochoi), in an effort to boost their own legitimacy by connecting themselves to the greatest of all kings. This particular portrait originated in the Levant, an area conquered by Alexander when he dismantled the Persian Empire from 332 BC. The Judaeans, who had been granted return from exile under the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great, were relatively content under Persian rule; under Alexander’s successor Seleukos I Nikator, and his heirs the Seleukids, Judaism was persecuted. As a result, small acts of Jewish resistance were carried out throughout the period, though there was no major armed uprising until the Roman occupation. It has been suggested that the damage to this statue, sustained in ancient times, was a private act of vandalism by an ancient Judaean dissatisfied with mistreatment by the Seleukids, who blamed Alexander as the bringer of their woes. Besides being a powerful symbol of the ethnically Greek occupation, Alexander’s portrait also contradicted a strict interpretation of the second commandment of the Jewish faith: ‘you shall not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness of anything which is in the heavens above, or which is on the earth beneath, or which is in the waters under the earth’ (Shemot 20:4). By bringing about destruction on this image, our possible ancient protestor dealt a powerful message both to the Graeco-Roman occupiers, and to his fellow Jews.

References: comparable busts of Alexander, with similar hairstyle and facial features, can be found in Leipzig (Antinkenmuseum, Universität Leipzig 00.037), Munich (Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek GL 559), and Istanbul (Archaeological Museum 1138T).